


Colors

by Anaross



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: F/M, Post-Serenity, Time Travel, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:32:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaross/pseuds/Anaross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The surviving crew of the Serenity picks up a new passenger who turns out to be one of those supposedly extinct vampire fellas. He just wants to get back home, but that's a mite tricky when home is hundreds of years in the past, on Earth That Was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Joss owns them all. He just doesn't always put them together the way I would.
> 
> Spoilers for Serenity film. Do not read this if you haven't seen Serenity.

There's not much color in space. Just dark and light, black and white. As I sit on the bridge, in Wash's old seat, I stare out the viewscreen and look for red planets and blue stars, but mostly it's just black and white.

Serenity too. It's not black and white, but military issue olive drab. Some battleship gray. Accent color? Brown. Like me. Like my uniform.

In my quarters, I open the wardrobe hatch and there they are– Wash's silly shirts, hanging next to my spare uniforms. He had a dozen of them– green and yellow and purple and red and pink shirts. He called them "Ha-whyn" shirts. They were baggy and flowery and I used to tell them they weren't very manly. That always inspired him to manly displays of navigation, or maybe fornication (as Book would say). So I never confessed that I sort of liked it when he wore one of those shirts– liked the brightness it put in the dun-colored bridge.

That was Wash. All brightness. I just wish I would have told him more. Told him how much I loved his silliness and his playfulness and the color he brought to life. My life.

Not much color now.

I gather the pink shirt against the dull brown of my uniform, and lie down on our bunk– my bunk– and try to sleep.

 

 

But the new pilot's rocky landing wakes me up, and I lie there stiff and awake until there's a knock on my door.

"Picking up a passenger." It's the captain, and he sounds like he does with me now, real soft and careful, like a harsh word or even an order might break me. Like I might like fall apart or do something scary like cry in front of him.

That's not fair. He's trying to be nice. That's hard for Mal. Not that he's not nice. In fact, in some ways he's a big ole softie, as Kaylee would put it. All the more reason to put on a hard shell and resist real emotion like radiation.

That's why I fell for Wash instead of him. I know you're wondering. Years with the captain– good-looking guy, quick with the wry quip and the six-shooter– you think I should have fallen for him. But it was always Wash for me. Because Wash liked to feel. Liked to care. Liked to have fun. Liked to wear dumb Ha-whyn shirts. Even pink ones. Didn't care what others thought. Didn't have to be cool.

Okay. I have a choice. Lie here in my bunk and cry Wash's shirt all wet, or get up and rinse my face and go check out this passenger.

I get up. Rinse my face. Go check out this passenger.

 

 

It's ranch country where we landed, and the tan landscape stretches out for miles till it meets the dirty grey skyline. I wait by the hatch, the captain on the other side, Jayne back in the shadows. The hospitality committee, that's us.

See, Mal is the first to admit he doesn't always have the best judgment when it comes to passengers. A guy with a bullet hole where his eye ought to be and a hand deep in his pocket, the sort of guy the rest of us would steer clear of (except Jayne, who likes a fight)– well, let him flash enough credits, and Mal decides the poor one-eyed guy deserves a space vacation. An expensive one.

So we've all learned to frisk and search passengers before we let them on. Mal smiles hospitably and takes the credits, I frisk the body, and Jayne goes through the luggage (unless the passenger's a woman, in which case Jayne and Mal flip for the frisking privileges and I handle the luggage).

"He's late," Mal grumbles, like we've got lots of places to go and this late guy is keeping us from getting there. Truth is, we're going wherever he wants to go. That's how much he's paying.

Then I see a spot of blue and purple against the brown hills. Black in between. White above.

I never used to think in colors. But that's what I see now.

The colors resolved into a form. A man form. He is all in black– black jeans, black boots, except for a royal blue shirt over the black tee. The blue is even more blue against that black. I blink, waiting for the color to fade in the faded light. But when I look again, it's still just as bright.

He walks easily up to our gangplank, though he's hanging onto two black duffles and one purple one (I do mean purple– purple like, like, I don't know. Even Wash never wore a shirt that purple). Mal and I move into position– all welcoming, but blocking the entrance.

"Howdy," Mal says.

"Mornin'," the man answers from several steps down. "This the Serenity?" He sounds a little like Simon– well, not all elite and educated, but kind of different, like he was trained to speak by actors in a play or something, one of those old funny plays Wash and I would see on shoreleave. Benny Hills, they call them. Wash loved those. He'd tell the jokes over and over, for weeks afterwards.

The passenger is polite, or at least he knows how to deal with the likes of the captain. He takes off his black hat– in fact, he frowns at it for a moment and then chucks it to the side, and it falls into the dusty grass below. I guess he doesn't much care for hats.

Now I see that the white I saw is his face. Not white– ivory, maybe. Pale but smooth. His hair is white too, kind of a white gold, or the ends of it at least. The inch closest to his skull is more a goldy brown. I wonder how much he had to pay to have his hair done that way. Looks expensive, anyway. No wonder he wanted to pitch the hat. Why hide an effect like that?

And why hide a face like that? He's the sort of guy Kaylee would go nuts for. Too pretty for his own good, that's what Mal would say (and probably will, soon's Kaylee says anything like "my, that passenger is fi-ine"). He isn't rugged-handsome like Mal, or boyish-handsome like Wash, or rich-handsome like Simon. He's actually a little scary-handsome, but not scary like Jayne (not that Jayne is handsome). More scary like one of those angels with flaming swords in those books of Book, all unforgiving angles and righteous cheekbones.

His eyes are blue as his shirt.

"Welcome," Mal says. He's smiling his welcome smile. It's a hard smile for him. He doesn't actually like welcoming passengers aboard his ship. You never know-- they might try to take it over, or say something mean about the dents in the hull. "Always glad to have a passenger on our voyage. But– " He smiled harder. "We have a policy. Payment first. And then we got to search every passenger. And his bags."

The man shrugs and comes up the gangplank. He lets Mal take the bags and pass them back to Jayne. Then he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a little draw-string bag. He passes over his ID book– which Mal passes right back; Mal doesn't want to know what Mal doesn't want to know– and then some gray bills, enough for the passage and maybe some more. Mal doesn't make change, and the passenger doesn't ask for it. He only raises his arms up, ready for the frisk, and Mal steps out of the way. "You're up, Zoe."

I don't know why this ended up my job. I guess it's because Mal has that thing about touching other men, you know, that thing men have. It's sort of funny. Because when I frisk the passenger, the expected happens. I guess it's less traumatic when it happens to me than if it'd happen to Mal. You know, I slide my hands under the passenger's blue shirt and run my hands over his chest– real brisk, like it's just another chest, although this is the sort of chest you might want to linger over, all taut and muscular and cool, see, it's been a lot of months since I last had my man, so I notice this– and then I slip my hands around back and find the six-shooter ("I was about to hand that over," he says) and toss it to Mal, and then I bend down and jam my hands into his left boot– a knife in his sock ("I was going to tell you about that," he says)– and into his right boot– a lethal little stiletto ("Forgot about that one," he says). Then I run my hands up his calf, up his thigh, and yep, he's packing iron there, except this time I don't touch. "Go ahead," he whispers. "That one's just about to go off."

Well, Mal's been counting the funds, but this makes him look up. And next thing I know I'm falling backwards and Mal is right on him. Defending my honor, or some stupid notion. Mal was never like this before I lost Wash. Well, Wash wouldn't have let him, and neither would I, come to that. None of his business. But there Mal is, his fist flying– and then, in a blur, the passenger has his back against the hatch, with Mal in a headlock. I've never seen anyone move that fast, and I've never seen Mal's face that particular shade either. Brick red? I'll have to check Inara's color charts.

I scramble to my feet, and Mal is squeezing out some words. "Jayne," he manages, and Jayne looks up from his search of the bags.

"You got some nice armory here," Jayne says to the passenger, pulling out a longsword. He doesn't notice Mal. Jayne can be sort of single-minded when he's got shiny things in view. "What's this alloy?"

"Not an alloy," the passenger replies easily, like he's not currently tightening his forearm across the captain's throat. "It's silver."

"Silver? We ain't seen none of that for decades."

"Yeah, well," the passenger says, and gives Mal a bit more air, enough that he could yell.

"Jayne!"

I'm mad that Mal doesn't think of calling for me, so I don't go to his aid. I'm telling you, I broke down once after Wash died, just once in front of Mal, and ever since he's treated me like I'm fragile. I'm not. I lost my gorram husband, and it hurt bad, and if Mal'd ever once loved anyone, he'd understand. But no matter how tough I act now, how I walk right into bridge like I've forgotten it's where Wash used to be, no matter how many tears I swallow back, Mal acts like I'm going to dissolve into a puddle right in front of him.

So I let the passenger throttle him.

Well, until the passenger's beautiful face changes into something not so beautiful.

It's pretty frightening. I'm glad Mal can't see it, though he's got to feel that sharp fang at the side of his neck.

"What are you?" I ask, reaching for my sidearm.

"I'm a vampire," the passenger replies. It's odd how his voice is the same, all casual and easy, when he says something like that with a face like that, and eyes all golden and catlike. My granma used to tell vampire stories, about how they drank blood and turned into bats. She never told me that they also turn into men.

"Vampire?" Jayne looks up from the sword. "I thought we wiped you guys out, last century."

"Well," the passenger says, his grin all predatory. "You missed one."

Mal's found some more air. "Jayne. Get me out of here."

"Oh!" Jayne looked at the vampire, and then at Mal, and then down at the sword. "Silver, you said?"

And then, quicklike, Jayne pulls the sword all the way out of its sheath and in two steps, he's there, and he plunges it right past Mal into the vampire's side.

Mal takes advantage of this to pull away, and he's rubbing at his throat as he backs away towards me. "You were a big help," he grumbles at me.

Real cool, I say, "Oh? You needed help, sir? I didn't hear you asking me for it."

"You're missing the point," Mal replies, and Jayne cackles.

"You mean the point I buried in this vampire?" He steps back and holds up the bloody sword. "Silver, see. Only thing that kills a vamp."

I clear my throat. "Um, Jayne? Guess you haven't noticed, but the vamp is still standing."

Jayne turns to see. Maybe "still standing" is an overstatement. The vamp is still on his feet, but slumped against the hull, his hand over a wound in his side. He's leaking blood. Really red blood. It's pretty against the white hand.

Sometimes I think I'm losing it. I'll end up like Jayne, just you wait. Ruthless. Uncaring. Only not so stupid, I hope.

The vampire straightens up. He doesn't die. He says, "Silver doesn't kill me. You're reading the wrong books."

Jayne frowns, probably less at the vampire's survival than the notion of reading books, right or wrong. "So what does kill you?"

"Like he's going to tell you," Mal says scornfully.

"Sunshine," the vampire says.

I glance out the hatch. It's a bit overcast, but there's some sun, dirty yellow stripes in the gray air. "You just walked through a load of it."

The vampire doesn't answer right away. Instead, he asks for bandages, and Mal – back to being hospitable– offers the doctor, and the vampire refuses. Mal gets the aidkit from the steerage locker, and we watch as the vampire pulls off both shirts and rolls some gauze over a wound that should have killed him, or should have dropped him at least, and for sure shouldn't be closing up this quick. I can tell Jayne is impressed, or pissed, hard to tell with him.

I'm more impressed with the exposed chest, and that flat belly. It's a crime to slash the perfect skin like that. Well, maybe a justifiable crime, since the blood red wound looks real vivid against the white.

"Sunshine," I remind him, trying to make it seem like that's more interesting than his quick hands moving gauze and tape across his belly.

"Only the sunshine of the world where I was born," he says. "All other suns are easy on me."

"So what's that world?" Mal asks. I get the idea that he's reserving judgment, but just in case, he wants to know where to maroon this guy.

"Earth," the vampire says, and we all stare at him.

Earth is lightyears away. Pretty much uninhabitable, or so they say. Only Alliance ships can reach it. Mal says, "No one's been to earth for decades."

"Just so," the vampire answers. I don't even know what that means.

But before I can ask, Jayne is smiling. "Stake! I remember now! A wooden stake kills a vampire!"

Got to give it to Jayne. The man knows his weapons.

The vampire tapes down the last gauze corner and looks up at Jayne. "Got one?"

Jayne shakes his head. The vampire reaches into his front jeans pocket and pulls out small but nice carved piece of wood.

Mal gives me a look. I was supposed to find it in the frisk, see. But I didn't get up to the vampire's pockets. Something intervened. That – what would you call it. Reaction. Male reaction.

And then that Mal reaction. I don't see how he gets off blaming me, when he's the one who interrupted the frisk just when it was getting productive.

The vampire tosses the wooden stake to Jayne.

Mal's about to speak. But this halts him with his mouth half-open. Jayne is startled too. He catches the stake and holds it up– yeah, real wood– and then he looks at the vampire.

"Go ahead, if you want to," the vampire says, holding his hands out so Jayne has a clear shot at his bare chest. "Got to be through the heart though. None of that poncey abdominal stabbing."

Jayne hefts the stake up experimentally, closes his hand around it, aims it. And then he lets his hand drop to his side. "Nah."

Jayne has his code. I don't know what it is, but it's a code. And I guess one item on the code is you don't kill a vampire with the stake the vampire has just willingly handed over.

He tosses the stake back to the vampire, and I have to wonder– why does he carry it at all? If there aren't any vampires left to kill but him?

Jayne follows up the weapon transfer by walking up to the vampire and holding out his hand. "Jayne."

"Spike," the vampire says, shaking hands. "Pleased to meet you."

We're a polite crew. Or at least we can't have it be thought that Jayne is the politest member. So me and the captain, we also have to introduce ourselves and shake the vampire's hand. His hand is cool in mine. Mal notices it too, figures it's blood loss.

"Sure you don't want to see the doctor?" Mal says, all solicitous now.

"I'll be fine in a couple hours." The vampire glances at Jayne. "Can I have my bags now?"

"Need to go through the last one," Jayne says, plainly embarrassed. I get the idea that searching the luggage of a man you almost killed doesn't quite violate the Jayne code, but in his rules of etiquette, it's a mite impolite.

The vampire shrugs. "Go ahead."

But he's tense and watchful as Jayne starts pulling things out of that purple bag. I move closer to see why.

Jayne pulls out a gaily wrapped green box and shakes it. It rattles.

"It's a gift," the vampire says, and he sounds a bit desperate. "Don't ruin the wrapping, okay?"

Jayne looks doubtfully at the box. Even if he doesn't want to, he's going to end up ruining the wrapping. That's just the way Jayne is. So silently he hands it to me.

Ookay. Mal's disappeared somewhere, so I can't hand the box off to him. I notice there's a white card stuck under the pink ribbon. _For Dawn_ , it says in a flourishing old-style script. I glance back at the vampire. He looks a lot more worried about this package than he did about the wound in his side. I hold the package to him. "Dawn's a lucky girl," I say. "You thinking of her."

"Well, it's just a puzzle." He ducks his head. "She's probably too old for puzzles now. But we used to put them together, one summer when she was just a kid."

"Dawn isn't your girlfriend, then," I say.

"Her little sister. I mean– not ... my girlfriend–" He shakes his head and adds, very softly, "It's been a lot of years anyway, since I saw them."

He turns away, like he's said too much, and he has. Way too much.

That's when Inara comes in, and am I glad to see her. No one's as good at distracting attention, especially a man's attention, than Inara. She glides through the door from her shuttle in a swish of expensive fabric, and stops short. Her gaze passes over to the vampire, and she smiles. And he looks at her and smiles back.

I've never been envious of Inara's beauty. It's otherworldly, exotic, and not quite real. I mean, she's real, but the beauty sometimes seems like an illusion, I guess because when I got to know her, I realized she is even more down-to-earth than I am. She's as practical as the plainest woman out of there, and so her beauty– it's just like a mask.

But I watch the two of them exchanging smiles, and two such beautiful creatures – it's like they recognized each other on a level that escapes me.

And then she sees Jayne upending the bag. "Jayne!" she cries. "Is that a Folmer?"

Jayne looks around guiltily. He's not sure what a Folmer is (I only do because I read her fashion shorts when I get really bored), but if he's got it, he knows it's probably because he stole it. The vampire– Spike– strides over and takes the purple bag from his hand. "Yeah," he said. "It's a Folmer. I got it in the sukh back there."

He lets Inara take it, and she moans as she runs her hands over the strap, traces the seamwork, and finally opens it up and rubs her cheek on the lining.

Jayne and I are watching openmouthed– I mean, if that's what she's doing to men behind those closed doors, she deserves every platinum she gets– but Spike is looking kind of anxious, like she might get bodily fluids on the wassel-skin exterior. "It's a gift," he says.

"For his girlfriend," I put in, though I can't tell you why. Just to put her on notice, I guess.

Inara sighs and buckles the buckle and hands it over. "I have been looking for a purple one just like that. The sukh, you said? Zoe!" She turns to me with that pretty entreaty that shouldn't work as well as it works. "Do you think the captain would mind if I went out just for a moment–"

"The captain would mind," Mal calls from the catwalk above. "We're closing up and heading out. Mr. Spike, Zoe can show you to your quarters."

I start to guide the vampire back, but he stops by Inara and says, "It was the only one there. A lady had left her rich husband, and she had a stall where she was selling everything he'd given her. And I saw this and I just knew my– this other lady– would like it. Perfect for small weapons, see. And she had a suede coat this color."

Inara gives him a sad look. You can tell she hoped he'd just give in and give it to her, but if he has a girlfriend with a matching coat, well, no chance of that. "She's a very lucky lady," Inara said. "Having a man like you. One who thinks of things like matching a bag to a coat."

"Yeah," Mal says from above, "we got a name for men like that."

But the vampire gives him a glare, baring his teeth, and I guess Mal remembers what his other teeth were like, because he says, "Not those guest quarters, Zoe. Let's let him have a whole suite to himself, since he was so generous with the platinum."

Jayne and Inara and I look at each other. Finally I say, "What whole suite?"

"The other shuttle," Mal says, like I must be really dense.

"That's pretty smart," Jayne says, and he's about to explain about the shuttle being in an area that can be isolated, and, worse come to worst, heck, we could jettison it and the passenger with one push of a button.

But before Jayne can let the vampire in on Mal's contingency plan, I've grabbed one of the black bags and the vampire's arm and yanked him through the hatchway to the back of the ship.

"Hey, Mr. Spike!" Mal calls after us. "You didn't tell us where you want to go."

The vampire looks back over his shoulder. "Anywhere but here," he says simply.


	2. Chapter 2

I give the vampire a quick tour of the boat's facilities, assure him he's welcome to use the galley for his meals– he grins and says he's on a limited diet– and then take him to the second shuttle. I'm pleased to see that someone's come in and straightened up since Jayne and Mal last played mumblety-peg here. (There are some punctures in the floor, but nothing big enough to trip him.) And I leave the vampire to get settled in, but as I look back from the hatchway, I see him touch his bandaged side and wince.

I hesitate. He said he was fine, but he doesn't look so good. One of those man-types that won't admit to pain. (Wash was more the moaning and whining and needing to be pampered in our bunk man-type. That was always fun.) So I stop by the sick bay and tell the doctor that the passenger might need some stitching up, and he rolls his eyes and says, "Jayne's work?"

"Yeah." I think about it and say, "Look, he's a vampire. The passenger, I mean. You know what that is?"

Simon has been gathering up his supplies, but at this he halts and stares at me. "A real live vampire? I mean, a real– well, they aren't alive, and they aren't dead either.... We studied them in med school. But I thought they were extinct."

"Well, he's not extinct. Not hardly. And he's strong. Real strong. So you better take Jayne with you."

"Jayne, the one who punctured him in the first place?"

"The vampire don't seem to hold a grudge. Probably has a healthy respect for Jayne's sword hand now." I remember how quick he moved to take Mal, and add, "And Jayne's got a healthy respect for the vampire's abilities too. So they'll stand each other off so you can get on with your work."

Simon shakes his head and snaps his medic bag closed. "A vampire. I should write an article about–"

And then he stops, as we both realize fugitives don't get to write medical journal articles. But Simon just shrugs. Got to accept the life you end up with, I reckon. He's made his choices, and maybe he doesn't regret them. No use regretting. Time goes on, regrets or no. What's happened has happened. Can't go back.

Simon tracks me down a half-hour later, when I'm in the hold with Mal, making sure everything's secured. "That vampire."

Mal and I look up from roping up a crate of supplies. The captain raises a hand to his neck– he's such a baby– it's not even bruised-- says, "Yeah. Best steer clear of him."

"I'm a physician," Simon says in his stiff way. "I have to treat him. But– Jayne said he'd just run the vampire through an hour ago."

"Yeah," I say, "about an hour. Stabbed him all the way through to the liver. Or the spleen. Something in that territory."

"Wound's already closed up. The vampire said that was normal– that as long as he drinks a pint or so of blood, he heals right up."

We contemplate this. "Useful," Mal says. "He's about the strongest ever got holt of me, that I'll confess. Though I did break his grip."

Yeah, once Jayne ran him through. But I don't say this out loud. "Might make a good crewmember," I observe. Just sayin'. Not advisin'. "Strong like that, and quick-healing."

The captain looks at me like I've finally gone round that last bend. "And he drinks blood," he points out.

"I must say, he's very adept with sharp objects," Simon puts in. "I left him teaching Jayne some new knife moves."

The captain says, "Woulda thought Jayne knew them all."

"Not all. The vampire had some new ones." Simon picks up his medical bag and says, "Captain, just in case, I asked him straight out if sedatives work on him."

"And I reckon he answered truly. Come on, doc, he's not going to–"

"He did. Told me precisely what worked best, and the dosage too."

"Well, that's right polite of him," Mal remarks. He doesn't sound all sincere.

"But he said I wouldn't need to sedate him. Said he's a demon, yes, but he keeps control. Says he likes humans just fine, and won't hurt us."

Mal seems to be reconsidering his policy of letting vampires on board. Or at least thinking he should charge this one triple and not just double. "And you believed him."

Simon shrugs. "Well, no. But I'd like to do more research. Centuries ago, back on Earth, vampires roamed pretty freely, that I remember. Mingled with humans."

"And drank them dry for dinner. I saw that vid too," Mal says, roping another crate to the hull with hard quick jerks. "So we lookin' like food to him?"

"I asked. He said he's got his own blood supply. Doesn't feed off humans."

Mal gives Simon a sour look. "Seems like he expects us to take a lot on faith. Well. That blood supply. You think you could maybe doctor it up a bit? Put some sleeping potion in there?"

The doctor starts protesting that it's unethical, all that, and I break in. "Captain, Jayne and I can keep watch on him. We might not be able to kill him, but we know we can disable him for long enough to chain him up, need be."

"Or I could tell him we can't take him after all."

"You'd have to give back his fare," I point out. "And we don't have any paying cargo this trip. Nowhere to go but the Haven, and we're not getting any platinums for that."

Poor captain. Always the struggle between securing this ship and securing our fortunes. Fortunes, as usual, win out. "Well, Zoe, it's up to you and Jayne then, to keep him harmless. You can't do it, we'll have to confine him to the shuttle."

Thereby depriving the female population of the ship of considerable entertainment value. Can't have that. Life in space can be boring. We need all the diversion we can get.

 

 

 

 

Finally I head for the bridge to do the co-pilot thing for takeoff. I have to do that sometimes now, because the new pilot is really a new pilot, only been flying about six months. Got talent, but not much experience. At least Kaylee stays down in the engine room this time, so I don't have to hear her mutter how Wash was better at babying the thrusters, and Wash wouldn't grind the gears like that, and Wash....

Kaylee doesn't mean to hurt me. It's just that she sometimes forgot that Wash wasn't just the best pilot in this quadrant, that he was also my husband. And I forgive her, because she misses him too, in her own way.

Once we're aspace, I go looking for company more talkative than the new pilot. (His name is Pencil, at least that's what Mal calls him, I guess because he's so thin.) I stop by Inara's shuttle and pass sometime leafing through her fashion rags, making fun of the ballgowns and the shoes with the laces that cross all the way up the calf. And oh, yeah, we talk about the new passenger. Inara says Kaylee was just here, asking to know everything about the man, and I say kind of noncommittally that he's worth asking about. Inara comments about what an interesting face he has, and did I see those arms of his, and the jeans riding low on his hips– she does know how to assess a man. Makes me wonder if she's going to offer him companionship... but she and Mal agreed long ago that crew and passengers are not client material.

Inara mostly wants to discuss that purple Folmer bag. I don't know that she'll actually try to steal it– she's not a thief, after all, except when she's helping us out– but I know lust when I see it, and lust is a corrupting emotion. I should know.

She notices finally that I've eaten the last of her bonbons. So she kicks me out.

I'm not hungry, not after all those bonbons, but I need distraction. Otherwise I'll have to go back to the bridge and watch someone else's hands on Wash's controls, or I'll have to go to my empty quarters and bury my face in his shirts and try to smell him. And that's a guarantee of a restless night.

So I make my way down to the galley. I take my seat at the table across from Jayne. Captain's already told him about our new assignment of vampire-control, and Jayne's got some suggestions about that, having spent an hour or so sparring with the passenger. "He's got a weakness or two," Jayne says. "Well, maybe not two. But he gave me this." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wooden stake. "Made me keep it this time. Told me he'd accept annihilation from a fellow warrior, I deem it necessary." He recites those last words like he's got them memorized, like he admires their cadence.

Sounds like a show of respect, and Jayne doesn't get a lot of those. I'm a bit jealous. I mean, I want the vampire to accept annihilation from me too, if necessary. Just as much a fellow warrior as Jayne.

Me and Jayne agree on some strategies, and he gets up and demonstrates some of the moves the vampire taught him, and I realize the vampire is telling us how to get him, if we – if we deem it necessary. Telling the doctor how much to dope him, and giving Jayne the stake and some notion of his weaknesses.

Maybe it's just to soften us up so he can make a feast of us later. But I think of him worrying about the wrapping of that gift for the little girl Dawn, and the purple bag he had to rescue from Inara's drooling, and I decide he just really wants to get back to his girls. And for some reason, he thinks Serenity is the ship that'll get him there, so he wants to stay on our good side.

While Jayne ladles himself a bowl of stew, he reminisces about the gun he saw in the marketplace but didn't have enough credits to buy. He really wanted that gun. But Jayne really wants every gun he comes across. We never have to think long about what to get for his birthday. He's drawing me a picture of the one who got away when Kaylee arrives, all excited because she got a glimpse of the passenger, and, just like I predicted, she wants to talk about how "fi-ine" he is. This gets Jayne to speculating on whether vampires, you know, do it, and Kaylee turns to me for a verdict on this, like I'm some kind of vampire expert.

I'm not about to tell her that in my experience, this particular vampire has working parts, and impressive ones too. Fortunately, Simon enters, and I tell her to ask him, 'cause he's just examined him, and wouldn't you know it, Kaylee actually does. "Hey, Doctor! Tell us about that vampire you just doctored. Did you see him nekked?"

Simon's trying to figure out how to answer this when River comes skulking in. She starts drifting around the edges of the mess, trailing her hand along the counter and humming some tune. That girl still gives me the creebies. Half the time she's crazy, and the other half she's not, and sometimes I don't know which half is which.

When Mal enters and helps himself to the stew, I give him the nod that says Jayne and me have worked out the vampire surveillance assignment. And I can see him relaxing. He's even got a couple jokes for Jayne and me, the mishy kind that Simon probably shouldn't hear, much less River, and I laugh and try not to think that thought, you know, _Got to remember to tell that one to Wash._

So most everyone else's in the galley when the vampire walks in, holding onto a big jug with some red powder in the bottom. Mal falls silent halfway through a joke, and Jayne says what we're all thinking– that's one reason we keep Jayne around, see, because he'll always say what the rest of us want to say. "That blood?"

Spike looks down at the jug. "Yeah. Dehydrated. Just add water." And then, smiling to himself, as if to a joke, he added, "Shaken, not stirred."

"Where'd you get it?" Mal asks, like he's actually interested.

"On Melothe. Bought it out the back of the infirmary."

"You eat anything else?" Kaylee asks, and he says no, and reaches over and grabs a sugar wafer from her plate and pops it into his mouth and grins at her, and continues on his way to the spigot.

River has taken to hiding in the cabinet. I can see her eyes glittering through the louvers. But as Spike goes to the pump with his jug, she pushes the door open and peers out at him.

Simon is right there, all protective and brotherly. River ignores him to stare at the vampire. I can tell he notices her. His movements, as he fills the jug and shakes it up and watches it turn blood red, are careful-- too careful. He knows he's being observed.

"I cut off your hands."

It's just another of River's crazy talkings. Simon's upset, of course– I guess he doesn't want to think his little sister's dreams are full of mutilation and murder.

But the vampire sets the jug down and turns slowly. He looks at River, huddled there in the open cabinet. After a long moment's regard, he says, "That you did, pet."

"But you have them now," River says. She's staring at his hands. He holds them up now, to show her.

"They sewed them back on."

"Let me see," she demands.

He hesitates. Then he crouches down a few feet in front of her (Simon moves so he's right next to her cabinet, though I don't know what he's going to do if Spike attacks) and slowly, very slowly, rolls up his left sleeve, and then his right. He extends his hands to her, turning his wrists so she can see the muscled ivory of his forearms.

Kaylee and me are only human. And women too. We crowd forward till we're right behind him, jostling for a better view. "Oh," she says, and I know she's thinking what I'm thinking, that a man's bare forearms are prime licking territory, and these forearms are real lickable, especially the faint pink lines just above his wrists.

Oh. That's where–

"River didn't do that. And I thought you said vampires didn't scar," Simon mutters.

The vampire touches the scar that bisects his eyebrow. "Don't scar. Only when a slayer cuts me."

"A slayer?" Simon repeats.

The vampire rolls down his sleeves, first one, then the other. Kaylee sighs beside me. We have to quick back up though, as the vampire stands. "You don't know, do you? What she is?"

Simon glares at him. "She's my sister."

"Yeah."

"And she didn't cut off your hands."

"No." The vampire reaches out, and River, all dainty, like he's asking her to dance, takes his hand and emerges from the cabinet. She smiles up at him, almost coy. And he smiles back at her. "But she remembers it happening, don't you, sweeting?"

She drops his hand. Smiles that secret smile of hers, her hair falling forward to hide her face. "Yes. Another girl did it. And you killed her."

Simon draws in a breath, and steps between his sister and the vampire. But neither of them notice. They just talk around him.

"Not her. Never hurt her. But this one–" he touches the scar on his eyebrow again. "This one, I did kill. That's what you're remembering."

River's eyes brighten behind her curtain of hair. And then, in Chinese, she says something really fast– I can't catch it.

"That's right, pet," the vampire says. "One good day." And then, very softly, he says, "But you don't have to worry about that. I'm the only vampire around anymore, and for a long time, I've been letting those good days pass by."

Ooookay. I'm missing about 98% of this. Simon looks just as confused, but ten times as angry. No wonderin' there. This vampire is saying he knows something about River that even her brother doesn't know. And River looks like she agrees.

The captain is watching this with his frowny face on. I can tell what he's thinking– years of fighting beside him, I can usually tell what he's thinking. And now he's thinking that he for sure doesn't want the superstrong vampire and the scientifically enhanced crazy girl making any kind of alliance. He says, real easy, "So, Mr. Spike–"

"Just Spike."

Mal pauses, like he's usually too polite to address passengers that informally. Then he says, still real even, "So, Spike, you decide where you want us to take you?"

Spike turns away from River to get a mug off the counter. But she's still watching him, her eyes all glittery. Were I him, I'd be nervous at that. Ever since the big battle, I been steering clear of River. She's too ... much. But he only pours himself a mugful out of his jug, and replies to Mal, "Wherever you're bound, that's where I'm headed."

"You on the run?" Mal demands. So much for politeness.

Spike leans against the counter and smiles at this. "Nah. For the first time in my existence, no one's bothering to chase me. Safe as houses, I am."

"We don't aim to attract the law to us."

"The law doesn't know I exist."

Mal studies him, then says, "We got one stop to make, just a quick setdown and rightaway takeoff. That's all. You paid enough to go about anywhere in the system. So why'n you choose a planet or a moon, and let Zoe know where you want us to direct this boat."

The vampire seems ready to argue the point, but then he shrugs. "Okay."

Kaylee smiles up at him, her generous smile. She's trying to help. "You look like a man who's headed home. Hear you have presents in hand and all."

He drinks off the mug– we're all tryin' not to remember what's in there– and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah. Headed home. I hope."

"Where's that?" Kaylee says. "We can take you there."

He starts to answer, then stops. Finally he says, "Not sure how to get there from here, that's all."

"Well," I break in, mostly because Kaylee's getting that starstruck look, and Simon's turning green, even though they're not together anymore. Best cut this Kaylee-crush short. "Well, I know the system pretty good. I'll bring some maps, and we'll plot out a course."

He regards me for a moment, then nods and heads out. River is sitting on the floor by the hatch, and as he pauses right by her, she reaches way up and strokes his forearm like it's a pet gee-gee or something. "Nice scars," she murmurs. "I like the scars."

He stands there patient for a moment, looking down at her hand on his sleeve. "Earned them fair, I did."

River's crooning now, in that half-hum of hers, then breaks off. "I remember."

"Me too." He withdraws his arm and heads back to his bunk.

 

 

I collect all of Wash's old system maps, the ones on paper– the elek ones are loaded on the bridge screen– and I collect Jayne, who collects the vampire's weapons bag, and together we make our way cross ship to the vampire's "suite". "Captain's not going to be pleased, you give the vampire back his weapons."

"Not givin' back," Jayne says, all disgusted. "Just want to go through them with him. Got some interesting items in here."

I shake my head. Guess we all have our loveys, and Jayne's always have points or bullets. I knock on the door, and about a second later, it opens. Vampire must have been waiting for us. He's still in his black dungarees, but he's taken off the black t-shirt, and buttoned the blue-shirt haphazardly over his bareness. I'm not really looking, no, but I can see the roll of the gauze bandage just under his chest.

He steps back to let us in, and I go right for the big table and start unrolling the maps.

Jayne sets the weapons bag on the bunk and says, "Was hoping you'd identify a few of these, where you got them." He withdraws that sword he stabbed Spike with not so long ago. He's washed it and polished it, so it's prettier even than before it tasted the vampire's blood. "Like where'd you get this?"

Spike is holding down two corners of my map, but he glances over at Jayne. "Brought it from home. Still have silver where I'm from."

"Earth," I say.

"Yeah." He looks like he's going to say more, but then he just tilts his head sideways and looks down at the map. "This is just this solar system."

I find a stack of books– real books, like Book used to carry– by the table, and I use them to hold down the rolling-up map. And then I explain, patient-like, though he ought to know this already, "Serenity isn't equipped to leave the system. Only Alliance ships do that, and the big passenger and freight cruisers."

He steps back from the table. "I know. That's why I'm thinking it's going to be hard to find my way home."

I regard him curiously. "You got plenty of platinum. Why don't you book passage on one of the extra-system ships?"

"Serenity's the boat I want," he says. He's got a stubbornness about him, I note.

I start to ask why, but Jayne has put away the sword and is holding up a short knife that looked like nothing but handle. He fumbles about for a bit and then pushes a button on the hasp, and out flies a blade. "Whoa!" He brandishes it in the air. "You bring this from home too?"

"Yeah," Spike says. A smile kind of plays around his mouth. "Took down the gryphon with that. Opened it right into his eyeball."

"Gryphon," Jayne echoes, opening and closing his new toy. "That like the governor?"

"Nah. Mythical creature. Head of an eagle and body of a lion."

Jayne looks over at me and taps his temple significantly with the knife handle. It doesn't spring open and cut him, like you think maybe it would do. "Body of a lion," he muses. "Whatever you say."

Spike is studying the map but glances up at that. "Guess you extinguished all of those too, huh? No vampires, no gryphons– what do you fight anymore?"

"Alliance, rivals, Reavers–" Jayne sets the folding knife back in the bag and pulls out something new. "No end of fights, you lookin' for 'em."

I want to get the vampire's attention back to the task, so I sweep my hand over the map. "Big solar system. We're not entirely welcome in the Core, but otherwise, take your pick."

Spike closes his eyes. Well, that's a gorram stupid way to look at a map. He stabs his finger down and we both look. Deep space.

No home there for him.

"Hey, Jayne," he calls. "That's a throwing knife."

Jayne looks up from his close study of the blade. "Yeah, so?"

"So throw it."

Jayne opens and closes his mouth, then opens it again. "At you?"

"Nah. At the map."

I backpedal quick, but the vampire stands his ground as Jayne shrugs and, gripping the golden knife by its tip, sends it spiralling across the shuttle. It thwaps down on the map and bounces off onto the floor, just missing the vampire's boot- not like the table is made of anything permeable– but it's cut a slice in the paper.

"Still in space." The vampire sounds disappointed.

I look at the coordinates of the slice and try not to think of Wash and the good care he took with this map. "Hmm."

Jayne comes over and picks up the knife. He sheathes it, grinning. "Where it landed, that's where we're goin', huh?"

"Gonna get to go real slow," I say, pointing at the slice. "Less'n I'm right confused, that's about exactly where we are right now."

The vampire considers this, and smiles slowly. "That means I'm meant to be here. Right here on this boat. Wherever it goes."

I heave a sigh and start rolling up the map. Captain won't like this. "Look. You're going to have to decide on some port once we make that dropoff. Can't just sail with us forever."

He tilts his head to the side. I'm already getting to know that look. Means he's going to say something... well, something.

But he just smiles and says, "You can tell the captain I'm happy to ride along for the nonce. Sure I'll be getting guidance later."

He doesn't say who's gonna be giving him that guidance. I just hope it ain't River, because she's not what I'd call a fixed star, no. She's not called River for nothing. Flows where chance takes her. So does this vampire, I guess. That's how they recognized each other, back in the galley. Two chance beings, here on our boat by accident.


	3. Chapter 3

We outrun an Alliance patrol, and we're all feeling pretty good about it. Pencil the Pilot even comes to the galley with me and Mal and Kaylee, though he stays in the corner. I get the idea if he could climb in River's cabinet, he would. He's kind of nervy, I guess, the very opposite of Wash, not that there's anything wrong with that. And he's not comfortable with us yet, or with me, anyway, 'cause he's got to know we– or me– always think of him as a substitute. So first chance he gets, he starts edging for the door. And when the vampire comes in, Pencil takes advantage of this to slip out.

Turns out the vampire watched the race from the shuttle, and thought it was gorram great, which it was. "Only it would have been better," he says sort of wistfully, "if there'd been a fight. Like in Starfox Assault."

Mal is real quick. Doesn't ask what Starfox is. He ain't easily diverted from what's essential. "You want a space fight, gonna cost you more."

I'm about to ask how he thinks we can scare up a fight just like that, when Kaylee breaks in. "No, Cap'n no fights. Not until we replace that forward gun that's backfiring. And I don't think Spike's got that kind of funds." Gloomily she added, "Don't know that there's that kind of funds in the known universe. Got to replace all the coupling, and the–"

Before she can itemize every worn piece of hardware, Mal breaks in. "Cheaper just to outrun 'em. And we can usually do that, as shiny as Kaylee keeps our engines."

Just then, the boat takes a lurch, then a lurch the other direction, and Mal and Kaylee exchange looks. Kaylee yells, "He's grinding the gears!"

At the same time, Mal growls, "He's wasting fuel!" And they both run out of the galley like the devil's chasing them.

We watch them go. The galley is suddenly quiet, and considering it's almost empty, it feels like strangely tight quarters.

"Odd," the vampire muses, breaking the silence, "that you travel in space, but you don't have Velcro."

You. He means us, for sure. Him and us. All of us. That must be what he means. "Vel-cro? That a weapon?" I ask.

The vampire bends down and pulls his pantleg up. I crane my neck and see a black tube on his calf above his boot. There's a ripping noise, and he's straightening, and I see something glinting silver against the black, and then it's in his hand, and I rise, same instant, my gun pointed right at him.

Very carefully, Spike opens his hands and lets the black tube and the knife fall to the floor. "Easy now," he says. "Just wanted to show you the Velcro."

I make a "back" gesture with my gun, and then reach down and grab the black thing, and the knife too. The tube is made of some kind of fabric, tough and slick, and there's a nice little pocket on the side for the knife.

"Thought we took all your weapons," I say evenly.

"Guess I forgot to tell you about that one. Had it hidden in the lining of that purple bag." Spike puts his hands down and leans back against the counter, trying to look all casual now. But there are certain reactions a man can't hide, and I recognize this man's particularly, having encountered it first when I frisked him. He does get aroused by the combination of a woman with weaponry, got to give him that much.

I glance at that reaction, and then back at the black fabric. Much safer. Studying the tube, I holster my gun, and slide the knife in beside it. "So this is Velcro? The fabric?"

"Nah. That's nylon. Here." Like I wasn't just holding a gun on him, he comes up close to me, puts his hand on mine, and his other hand on the fabric. His hand is cool and dry, and the fingertips are a little calloused as they slide against me. "Pull here." He guides my fingers to a little tab, and I yank, and I hear that ripping noise again.

The tube opens. Now it's a long banner of black fabric (ny-long, did he say?). "Did I break it?"

"Nah. Look." He takes my fingers and rubs them against the edge of the banner. It's all furry, like felt. "And here." He brushes the back of my hand with the other edge. This side is prickly. "Put them together."

He's real close, and I can see just how blue his eyes are, and I see he's got a spray of golden freckles on his nose (like Wash– no, stop thinking about that), and maybe my hands tremble a little as I lay the prickly edge against the furry edge. The banner becomes a tube again, just the right size to fit around a calf. A kind of knife holster, easy to put on and take off. "It hooks up so easy," I say, real aware of the stillness of him against me, "but it's got to be torn apart."

He takes it from me and slides it onto my arm, over my uniform shirt. "Yeah." He glances at my face, and then down at my hand. "It's like–"

He doesn't say it, so I say it in my mind. _It's like sex._ But then I realize, that's not what he'd say. He'd say _love. It's like love._ He knows. He knows what love is, and how it rips you apart.

And then, like we both suddenly realize what's happening, we back away. The Velcro tube falls off my arm, and lands on the floor, and he bends and picks it up and hands it to me. "You sell that to an inventor," he says. "Someone who knows how to fabricate. It'll make you millions."

"You're gorram crazy," I tell him, laughing, relieved the moment is over. "Clever, yeah, but it's just a trick."

"That's what they said on Earth. And then it took over. Velcro everywhere. Like a computer virus. Like kudzu."

"Virus?" I repeat. "Kudzu?"

He smiles, easy now, like we haven't just silently confessed our strongest weakness. "I'm not evil enough to introduce you to kudzu. All I can say is, if the reports are right and Earth isn't liveable, I'd suspect kudzu."

I gather up the Velcro, and smile my thanks, and leave the galley as quick as I can without looking like I'm panicking.

I don't understand him. Don't understand his kudzu and his virus. I feel like Jayne, or like Simon, struggling along trying to figure people out, but without any native ability.

And yet, I do understand him. Might not understand all the words he speaks. But when I let myself, I understand him, and I know what he wants– to go back. To go back to where he loves. I understand. I want that too.


	4. Chapter 4

I avoid the vampire the next day. Easy enough, 'cause Jayne keeps him occupied, fighting through every piece of weaponry in the vampire's bag.

So maybe I don't really avoid him altogether. I find myself sitting up on the catwalk, legs dangling, real quiet, watching them spar. It's better than a play. Jayne's all alted– not often he fights someone he thinks is an equal. And Spike's being polite, letting Jayne think that's all he is, just as good, maybe a tiny bit better. Jayne doesn't feel him holding back. But I've seen him easily subdue Mal, and I know there's twice as much he's holding in reserve.

He lets Jayne have the sword. Defends himself with the short knife. Always careful not to cut Jayne, not to let Jayne cut him.

It's pretty, their dance on the mesh flooring.

Not that Jayne is pretty. Only he is now, moving kind of slow, a big man, real big, but now he's big like one of those big cats on Euronia, his massive arms held out like a rope-walker's, silver sword glinting in his hand, half of a smile on his face.

The other man is smaller, quicker. Gold-tipped hair, slender body moving like quicksilver with his silver knife, always dancing out of the reach of the sword. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee–" he says like a taunt, only his voice is more like a caress. "You wanna know my name, just call me Ali."

And he sidesteps, comes in at Jayne from behind, would stab him bad only he pulls back at the last minute and does a flip, real sweet, right over Jayne's long-stretched sword.

Jayne is laughing now. Astonished laughter, floating like a butterfly up into the heights of the rafters.

River's beside me now. Didn't hear her coming. Didn't see her drop down next to me. But here she is, her combat-booted feet stuck out through the railing. No laughter from her. She's staring down at the fighters, her brow furrowed.

I'm not like Kaylee. I don't find this girl much charming. Wish she'd leave me be, leave me to watch the fight.

But she doesn't leave. She just watches with me. Finally she points at Spike. "He's not really here," she tells me. "I've already killed him."

"I thought he killed you."

Glad Simon doesn't hear me say that, because it's the kind of comment that makes him mad. Wants us all to pretend River's just a girl, only no one would ever treat just a girl so fragilely. She is tougher than he thinks. Doesn't raise her hands and scream. All she does is look hard at me and say, "He did. But then I burned him up."

"Before or after you cut off his arms?"

"Before," she says simply.

"Gorram, the two of you are resilient. Burned up, killed, arms cut off. You just bounce right back."

"Not always," she says mournfully, getting up and starting down the catwalk to the ladder. "Not next time."

The vampire looks up at this, almost like he heard what she said. And maybe he did hear, because he drops his knife hand to his side and says to Jayne, "I give up. You got anything resembling a beer in this boat?"

"Might tap that cask of ale we stole from Beaver. It's somewhere back there. Mal hid it good."

And Spike tilts his head that way he does, and says, "Think I can smell it. Follow me."

And like it's his boat and not ours, he leads Jayne back into the cargo hold, and they emerge five minutes later, the two of them rolling the cask along the mesh floor, one pushing it with a foot, watching it roll, then the other pushing it with another foot. It's a slow way for two strong men to move a cask, but I smile as I watch. They're like two boys, rolling a barrel along a dusty road, nothing better to do of a summer afternoon.

 

 

A little later, I give up. Might as well. Head for the galley, figuring if I'm drinking too, Mal won't be able to threaten them with gangplanking and keelhauling and all those other punishments for thieving and mutiny he read about in that old manual of his.

But what do I know? When I get there, Mal's already there, already half-drunk. One-and-a-half sheets to the wind. He's all happy because Kaylee greased up the couplers and now the boat doesn't screech so bad when Pencil banks it in that sudden way of his. He's sitting on the counter, a few feet down from the vampire, across from Jayne, and they're telling war stories. Maybe it's because I've heard all Mal's– hell, I was there for most of them– or maybe it's because Spike's stories all have gryphons and demons and other fancies, or maybe it's because his voice is quicksilver too, that exotic accent of his, that rhythm like none I've known– but I find myself leaning closer and listening harder when the vampire speaks.

Kaylee's listening hard too, a mug of ale gripped tight in her hand, a spot of axle grease on her nose. "Shiny," she whispers to me. She's drunk too. We're not an abstemious crew, you probably figured that. At least River and Simon are off somewhere being sober, and when Inara drinks, if she does, she drinks alone.

Jayne's tuckered out from all the swordplay, and all the ale, and he announces he's going to his bunk. He isn't dancing now– lumbers out, sighing as he goes. Weary in every muscle. The price of being a heavy man and dancing like a light one.

Mal finishes up a slightly enhanced version of the encounter with Beaver's rovers, the fight that resulted in our winning this cask of ale, and he says, "Twenty of them, and we boarded them, took back the cargo they stole, just the few of us."

The vampire jumps off the counter, takes Mal's mug out of his hand, goes to the cask and fills it and his own. Gives Mal's back and drinks half of his own. He's got a little foam mustache now but doesn't notice. "So you been flying this boat all this time, with this same crew?"

Mal sets his mug down on the counter and glances at me. "Well. We had a different pilot until recently. He ... died in battle. Name of Wash."

"Wash," the vampire says. The name is gentle on his tongue. "Zoe's man."

I don't know how he knows that. Ought to object, him calling me by my first name like that, talking about my man like that. Being sympathetic like that. Not his place. But I let it pass. Maybe Jayne told him. Maybe Inara. Not like it's any big secret, that I had a man once and he's gone now. "Yeah," I say. Maybe too quick. "And there was Book."

Kaylee's saying at the same time, "Can't forget Shepherd."

And Mal's putting in right then, "Also Preacher."

"So there are three more," the vampire says.

We look at each other and laugh. It feels good, to laugh again. Book and Wash, they would have wanted that. They both knew how to laugh.

The vampire waits patiently, and finally Mal says, "It's all one person. Real name Book, or as real as he ever told us. A preacher man. And Shepherd's like his... professional name. Shepherd of souls, all that."

The vampire looks up at that. "Shepherd of souls, huh?"

"Got an old Bible and everything," Kaylee says. "We're taking it on his retreat place. On the Shinshen moon. Monastery there."

"We're going to stop there, drop off his kit. So if you, you know," Mal says, smiling bright, like he's just discovered the answer, "maybe need a retreat yourself, a taste of that monastic life, well, you can get off there."

Mal is being rude, and he thinks he's being polite. But Spike isn't listening. Instead he's staring at me. "Shepherd. Of souls."

"Yeah," I say. "A man of the Book. He'd pray over you, if that was what you needed. But–" I add quickly, because it occurs to me that a vampire might not want to be prayed over, "he'd leave you alone unless you asked."

"Shepherd," he whispers. And then he smiles, that sweet, blinding smile. "When do I meet him?"

Mal looks at me, and I look at Kaylee, and finally Kaylee is the one who says gently, "Shepherd is dead. Months now. In a raid on the monastery."

Spike's eyes are blank with shock. "But you said you're going there. Taking him his Bible."

Kaylee shakes her head sadly. "The monks are trying to rebuild it, and we're going to take his books there, to help them restock their library. That's all. He's gone."

She is all serious and somber, and I can tell that she thinks the vampire was hoping to get some spiritual guidance from the Shepherd. But I know better. He thought Book could help him somehow, help him get back to that girl of his.

He mutters some apology and leaves us.

 

 

Later that night I stop by his shuttle hatch, and without giving myself a chance to consider, I shove the door open. It's dark, and I can't see him, but in a second, he's on me, his hard arm around my neck, his other arm blocking the way to my gun, his mouth at my ear. "What do you want, soldier?"

He's giving me enough air to breathe, even to talk. I choke out, "Just wanna talk to you."

He lets me go so suddenly I almost sprawl out on his bunk. "Don't come up on me unawares," he says. "I'm like you. Easily sparked into violence."

"Okay." I rub at my throat, but he didn't hurt me. Didn't scare me either, I want to tell him. But instead I sit up on his bunk, while he drops down on a chair by the table. "Spike," I say, and then I can't think what else to say.

He says, "Zoe," but not like he's making fun of me. He says it in a puzzled, abstract voice, like I'd interrupted him thinking real hard, and now that the rush of my entrance has worn off, he's back to the fog of thought.

"Can we have some light in here?"

He reaches out some kind of lighter and flicks it on, setting the flame to a wax candle in the very middle of the table. Can't imagine where he found a wax candle. I'm so amazed, I don't even warn him how it's dangerous to have an open flame on a boat like this.

Then, as the candlelight flickers across his face, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cards. Not fortune-telling cards. Just regular cards. He deals them face down in a line across the table, then adds some more cards face up on top. He's all intense and focused. "What do you want, Zoe?"

I take a deep breath. "I want to know. Where are you from? What do you want?"

He's staring at the cards, not at me. Deals three out, lays two down on the neat piles of cards. Deals out three more. "I come from the past. I want to go back."

"The past?" The words kind of lodge in my throat, and I have to shove them out. "What do you mean, the past?"

Now he looks up. His eyes are silver in the candlelight. As if he thinks someone else might be listening, he whispers, "I mean, six months ago, for me, it was five hundred years ago." He's quiet a long time, long enough for me to figure out what he means, then he finally adds, "It was 2004. I was 150 years old. Give or take. Too old for a man, yeah, but good age for a vampire. See, I was born in 1854. On Earth. In England. Victoria was queen."

I'm silent. Stupid with silence.

"In 1880, I met a lady. She made me what I became. A vampire, I mean. And I stayed that way a long time, till I met another lady. Only the second one I've loved. I became something else for her. " He looks up from his cards, gives me a half-smile. "Change comes hard to me. I have to climb hand over hand, every inch of the way. Until–"

I finally find my voice. "Six months ago."

"Yeah. I ended up here. In this time. Lost."

"How'd you get here?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe it's my... destiny. My doom." He glances over at me, deals out three cards. All deuces. He's pretty good at cheating. Fast hands when he shuffles. Only he deals real slow. "There was a big battle. I was on the side of right, fat lot of good it did me. And Blue–" he pauses, like he's trying to figure out how to say this in words I'll understand– "she's like a god, see. And she got a portal opened, and the others got through it. But I had this dragon to slay, and I jumped through a minute later... and ended up here. Now. Alone."  
I ignore the part about the god. Know better than to question a man's religion. "You really slayed a dragon?"

"Yeah," he says, and I can tell he's proud. "With that silver sword Jayne likes."

"They still got dragons where you're from."

"We boast all levels of monsters." He glances around the galley like it was the whole solar system. "You got yourself a monster-free zone, huh? And all the evil went away with us, didn't it?"

"You know it didn't," I say.

"Guess there was a bit left in men's souls after all."

"Some evil men in your world too, I reckon."

"A few. But we monsters look the part of evil better." He smiles at me, shakes his head, and for a second there I glimpse that other face, the scary one.

"Don't look so evil to me," I say, and I mean it.

"Hey! It's plenty evil!" he protests, and I laugh, because that's what Jayne would probably say. Now Spike says, "It's true. I was evil enough, in my time."

I'm not one to confide, you know. Keep my own counsel. Safer that way.

But back at the start of us, I told Wash everything. Told him all the terrible things I'd done in the war, all the cruel thoughts I've had, all the hatred and coldness I've felt. And you know what he did? He held me close and whispered, "Nothing you can say or do can make me stop loving you." It rhymed, like a song. And I've had that running through my head ever since, just like a song. _Nothing you can say or do... can make me stop loving you._

Now I find myself confessing, "I've done evil, I think. In my time."

He doesn't scoff at this, doesn't say that a pretty thing like me couldn't do evil. He just tilts his head and says, "You've done your share of warring, and warring means doing wrong. Doing right too, but doing wrong. Can't get around it."

"Yeah." I swallow hard. Remind myself of what's important here. "Why Serenity? Why'd you come here to us?"

He doesn't speak for a moment. Too busy gathering up the cards, shuffling them, dealing them. Then he says, real careful, "The soul-reader showed me your ship in the bowl. I saw the logo shimmering in the water. Reader said it was going where the wizard is."

Bowl? Water? "Soul-reader? Wizard?" I say.

"A mage. A magic man." Impatiently he deals out the cards again, but he doesn't like what he sees and gathers them back in. "And he would send me back." Suddenly he looks up at me, his face bleak. "But you aren't going to any wizard. There aren't any wizards anymore. Not even magic anymore. I thought your Shepherd might be what the reader was seeing. And maybe he was. But he's dead. And I'm never going back, am I? Stuck here forever. Live here forever. Die here forever."

"Forever." The word echoes. It's like memory, like loss. It just keeps sounding.

He gathers the cards up again, shuffles them. It's just a way to keep his hands occupied, I can tell. He's restless that way. "Angel – my grandsire– always told me that I was hellbound. Guess he was right."

I say, "Hell's not here."

"She's not here."

Then I understand. Hell, I feel it. "I know what you mean."

He smiles at me. It's a sad smile. "You do, don't you?"

"Used to be more like heaven." I don't care that I sound like a fool. He knows what I mean. He knows about Wash. Understands. And then, all of a sudden, I whisper, "I wish I could go back to the past. I'd give everything, everything. Just to be with him another minute. To tell him."

"He knew. Knew every bit of him. Beginning and end." He looks at me, and his eyes are all glinty. "You know he knew."

It's true. I never let Wash fall asleep of a night without that whisper in his ears. But something in the way the vampire said that made me ask, "Did she know too?"

"That I loved her? Sure. But–"

He falls silent, and I say, "It's not enough, is it? It's never enough. Heaven while it's there, and then hell when it's gone."

"That's love for you." Then he puts his head down on the table, right on top of the cards. And I can't help myself. I reach out. Touch his head, the soft bi-color curls, the gentle curve of his head back to his neck. The little knobby part that's the top of his spine. I don't understand how he's not human but he's got all these human parts, like curls and a spine and love .

I leave after that. Go back to my bunk and go to sleep with Wash's red flower shirt in my arms.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, I come into the galley, and he's sitting with River at the table. The green wrapping paper is balled up on the floor, and the pink ribbon is dangling from the bench. River's got the puzzle pieces all arranged in front of her, and she's got one hand holding back her hair, and the other hand is placing pieces, one two three, so quick. Spike is next to her, proffering puzzle pieces, which she snatches from his hand. Sometimes she scolds him for handing her the wrong color or shape, but I notice that she doesn't pick up any pieces herself. She waits for him to hand them over.

Simon comes in– he never lets her stray far– and I see he's about to say something. But River says, all happylike, "I bring order to chaos, Simon!"

And it's true– she's got half of the picture resolved, and I can see now it's depicting Xenon, that pretty pretty city in the sky, the city where Wash and I honeymooned so long ago.

Simon stands by his sister at the table and picks up a piece. Quick, she slaps his hand and he drops the puzzle bit. "Only Spike gets to help."

Spike says, "You just spent the last hour telling me how every piece I give you is wrong. Maybe your brother'll do better." He gets up and with a gentlemanly gesture, offers his seat to Simon. "She doesn't need either of us, I wager, but this way, we can take some credit when she gets it done."

Simon doesn't smile at this gesture of friendship. He just takes the seat and says, "Well, River, that's impressive work."

"Three thousand pieces, and I've placed 1,566 of them. In an hour."

The vampire walks out before I can ask him why he gave River Dawn's gift. But I see the white envelope sticking out from under the wrapping paper, and I bend real quick and kind of surreptitiously slide it out and stick it away in my pocket.

I wait a half an hour, debating. Then I check on the bridge to make sure nothing's going on, and then walk easy back in his shuttle. This time I knock, all polite. He lets me in, and I go and sit in the pilot's seat. It's dark in here, like night-- well, it's always night in space. We just call twelve hours "day" so we'll know when to sleep. But he's got that candle burning, and a book open on the bunk, and his eyes are drowsier than I've before seen. Might as well be night, in this cabin.

I pull out the envelope. "You forgot this."

Automatically he takes it from me, and for a moment he just stares at the old-fashioned script, and he puts it down, real gently, on his weapons bag.

I comment, "You gave River Dawn's gift."

"Yeah."

"And I bet you gave Inara that purple bag."

"Looked kinda poncey, I did, carrying it."

"And the sword? Jayne's got that now?"

"Yeah." He leans his shoulder against the door.

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Don't know."

"Sure you do. Tell me."

I can see him give in. Surrender. It hurts me to watch. He says, real low, "I'm not getting back there. Never gone to give Dawn her gift, or see Buffy match the bag to her coat. I'm never going to give Angel back the sword he lent me." He pauses, then adds, "Well, I probably wouldna done that anyway. But may as well give all that to the ones here, make some use of it."

"You given up?"

"Yeah. All this time I been looking for a way back." He presses his head against the door, and he whispers, "But there's no way back. There was a way here, but there's no way back. You don't even know what wizards are. Don't even have them. You here have lost so much in five centuries, and you don't even know it."

I'm about to protest. But that's not what he needs. I say instead, "Like we lost Velcro."

He smiles briefly. "Like Velcro. And magic. And all the wonder and the monsters. And the colors. Everything now is the color of dust and iron."

I want to protest. There's more than that now, I know it. I've seen other colors. Wash's bright hair, and his eyes a paler blue than this man's, and Kaylee's blushes, and–

But he means there's no color for him. I say, "I wish you could go back."

"Me too." He manages a smile. "Hey. I didn't give you anything."

"You gave me the Velcro. Remember? Gonna make my fortune."

"It will," he says, "you play your cards right." The smile leaves his face. "That's not much, is it. For a gift. But I've nothing else to give you."

"Sure you do," I say. I get up from my seat and cross the little space and go right up to him. "Got this–" I touch his dramatic hollow cheek. "And this." I touch his mouth.

He's very still under my hand. Then he captures it in his. "Zoe, I– you know I love her."

I shake my head, impatient now. Ready to touch more. "Right. You love her. I love Wash. But you're never going to get back to her. And I'm never getting Wash back. So here we are. Alone. Together."

"Okay," he says. And when I touch him this time, he doesn't draw away.


	6. Chapter 6

"You're so rich," he whispers against my breast, and it makes me laugh. We've already made love twice, and so I have room for laughter, and other things beside desire.

"Not rich yet. Haven't sold my Velcro."

"I mean your color."

"Thought we had no color in this time," I tell him mockingly.

"Didn't mean you. Lovely color. Deep and dark." Now he's moved up to my neck. But we've been here before, and I know I'm more likely to bite than he is. (Hell, I proved that twenty minutes ago.) And his mouth moves over my throat, over my jaw, pauses a moment at my mouth– "I wanted this mouth, you know, first I saw it–" to my ear, and then my hair. "And these curls." He winds my hair around his hand and brings it to his mouth, and licks it, and it is like he is licking my skin– I feel it in my breasts and my mouth and my priss, and now there's no room for anything in me but desire.

He makes me forget. No. He makes me feel. Something other than loss. It's just for now– I'm no fool. I know it won't last. Shouldn't last. Can't last. But there's tonight, and it's full of him and me, and that's enough. For tonight.

 

 

It's more than tonight. Big surprise. The second night, he's the one who draws me in, who catches me in the cargo hold and takes me there, up against the crate of dried pears, both of us holding our breaths, trying to stay silent so that River out in the portway doesn't hear us.

I come with a moan that he cuts off with his kisses, and he leans against me, his hand cool against my breast. I hear River just outside, singing some song Jayne taught her, the one that she knows better to sing around Simon.

"So romantic. Always take you to the poshest places." Spike slides his hand down to tug at my nether curls.

"Don't mind," I whisper back, and begin to sing River's dirty song, real soft, and he kind of sighs and buttons me back up, and I button him back up, and he rests for a moment, his forehead on mine.

"Can I come to you tonight?" he asks, all politely.

"I'll come to you." My quarters are right across from Kaylee's. Too conspicuous. And besides– well, Wash is still there. His shirts. His toys. His hairbrush with little strawberry blonde hairs stuck in the bristles.

I don't regret this. I don't think it's a betrayal. I'd still be with Wash, and only Wash, if I had any choice. This is just a chance– to feel again, to give again.

I wouldn't do this with anyone else. Just the one who has known love, and loss too.

But I want a place where I can remember Wash. A memory place, with him and only him.

Spike doesn't have any place like that.

I try to make that shuttle a memory place for him.

 

 

By the third morning, Inara's figured it out. She approves. She doesn't say that out loud, but she sits across the lounge table from me and smiles like a cat.

I'm not sure I like that, the companion approving of my choices. I mean, I'm no moralist. Kind of licentious, even, in my day. Wash and I were in bed an hour after we met, 59 minutes after I told the captain that I didn't like that new pilot one bit. (I liked him real fine after that, just want to make that clear.) But I get the idea that she approves of me moving on. Letting go. Giving up. And that's not what's happened at all. I'll never give up Wash.

It's just that for the moment, there is Spike. Filling up my moments. And I'm doing that for him too. We... occupy each other. Without taking over each other. Filling up empty places without replacing what was there before.

He says he loves the long strength of my body, and the fierceness of my spirit, and that makes me love myself again. Makes me know myself again.

I can tell reasons for the rest of my days. But it comes to this– we need each other. Right now, we need each other. We save each other from the despair that lies waiting in the darkness. And that's nobody's business but our own.

 

 

 

 

We don't talk about the future. I don't see anything I can do to change what awaits me– not like I'm going to leave Serenity. And I don't think he's got any notion of what awaits him. I reckon he'll stay until something tells him to go. I reckon neither of us wants to know ahead of time when that will be.

That night, as we approach the monastery moon, I lie with him in his bunk. We stare out at the stars and the blackness, and I don't think about the future. Much. Finally I say, "I don't even know what this means."

He slides his hand from my hip to my breast. "Does it have to–" But then he pauses, and opens his fingers to capture my nipple, and he says, very softly, "It means we can still love."

Oh. That's good, ain't it? "Is that what it means?"

"Yeah. Means more than anything, loving."

"More than being loved?"

"I think so."And then I feel him smile, his mouth curving against my shoulder. "Part of my problem."

Well, I think he's right. I think so because I can feel myself unfreezing, because I can feel myself opening. Touching. And that can't be bad. Get me hurt, sure as sheepguts, but even hurt is better than frozen.

And I close my eyes and feel his hand on my breast, and I say, "It hurts to remember. But if I forget, I lose him."

"I know." He gathers me close, his mouth in my hair. I slide my hands around his waist and hang on. He whispers, "Always lived in the moment. That was me. Never gave much of a thought to the past or the future. Never planned ahead or looked behind. But – but my today is so far past." He stirs against me, and I feel him tightening, tensing. "I can't think of it. Can't think of her being dead these five centuries. So I think of her being alive, just in a different time. There's a time that she's dancing and fighting. And Dawn is eating popcorn and waiting for her to come home. And it's not in my memory. It's happening somewhere, even if I never see it."

"Time travel," I whisper. "Somewhere there's another time where she is."

"Yeah. And another time too, where you and your man are together, and happy. Does it help to think that?"

"I don't know." I draw breath, let it out slow. "It's not like with you. I lived these months with him gone. But my memory, I guess that's like time travel, huh?" It sounds lame, even to me. I try to finish it up in a more certain voice. "And you can remember when the two of you were happy too."

He is silent for a moment, then says, "Well, no. We never were. Or maybe I was, but she wasn't. But maybe in the future– I mean, after me– she is happy."

"She wasn't happy with you?" It doesn't seem possible.

"No, can't say she was. I was... happy with her. Sometimes. But I woulda been with her anyway. You know?"

I guess I do. I'd be with Wash, even if he didn't make me happy. I'd be with him just to be with him. But still– "Why wasn't she happy?"

I feel his shoulders move in a shrug. "Bad times. Maybe she'd've been happy with someone else. But I was always there. Maybe that's why she kept me around, because with me she didn't have to worry about it."

"About being happy? That's crazy. She didn't want to be happy?"

He sighs. "She had her mission. Had to stay strong. And maybe happiness felt like a weakness to her. To give in that way."

I consider this. Consider how I first looked at Wash and knew he was a threat to me. Knew his silliness and joy would take me over and change me forever. But I gave in. Took me most of an hour, but I gave in. (Never regretted it. Even after he was gone, I didn't regret giving in.) "You have to surrender, I guess. Take a chance and hope for the best and just surrender."

He laughs, but the laugh dies quickly. "Yeah, well, the slayer isn't real quick to surrender. She'd rather fight."

It comes to me that this is Mal's problem too. He just can't give in. Maybe Inara can't neither. They'd rather fight it, because surrendering feels like... well, surrender.

I don't think that's a problem for Spike and me. Here we are, not a week acquainted, no future, no past, neither free, and we're surrendering to this. Whatever it is.

"Happiness isn't something I fight," I say. "And I like to fight just fine."

He moves down to rest his head between my breasts, and the candlelight plays soft on the golden tips of his curls. "I remember. Thrill of the year, you pulling that gun on me."

"It excited you," I recall, recalling just how, and he must be recalling it too, because I feel him hardening against me.

"I like a woman with a weapon." He bumps my thigh with his erection. "Got one for you. Get a grip on it and see if it's cocked."

I have to laugh. Do all men refer to their equipment as...well, equipment? Wash used to chronicle his entrance... Coming in for a landing...very smooth... oh, bit of a bump there on the runway....

"Maybe first you need me to pull your trigger," Spike's whispering, and his hand is moving down, his trigger finger all curled and ready, and I just can't help it. I croon his name and arch right into him.

 

 

We're halfway there when there's a bang on the shuttle door. "Hey, Zoe!"

It's Jayne. I guess Inara isn't the only one who noticed. And given how loud Jayne is yelling, pretty soon the whole crew will notice. Not that it's anyone's business but mine and Spike's.

I don't even bother to pretend I'm not there. "What?" I yell back.

"Approaching Safe Harbor. The little crazy is goin' crazy. Might be some action."

I detach from Spike-- he's reluctant to let me go-- and put on my uniform and kiss him goodbye, and head up to the bridge. It's lit dimly, the only lights the ones glowing on the panel, and Mal and Jayne are bent over the laser-trail device, trying to make sense of it. They move apart to let me in between, and Jayne keeps clearing his throat, like he could say something but is refraining.

Spike's more experienced at this secret lover thing. He arrives five minutes later, all clean and shiny, announcing that he heard some commotion, and can he help commote?

He doesn't fool Jayne-- who gives him a broad wink-- but Mal's oblivious. He jerks his head towards River, who sitting in the corner, moaning to herself, Simon crouched next to her. "Says there's Reavers about."

Just then Spike looks up, and a ugly Reavers hobgoblin of a ship zooms across our viewscreen. Pencil the pilot yelps, and Mal plops down at the other seat and works the lasex screen. "Three– four maybe." He looks back at me. "They're blowing past us. We don't matter to 'em. They're headed for Safe Harbor."

And that they are. They're sailing right past us, aimed at the silver glow of the Safe Harbor moon. Just their sort of massacre– monks who will pray as they're mutilated. I think of Book, and his people, and I harden my voice. "Best try 'n seduce them away," I say, and as Jayne grins at me, and Spike tries real hard not to grin at me, I think maybe I should have come up with a different word there. Lure? Tempt?

Let it go, I tell myself. We got a serious problem to solve. "I'll work the fore gun." This is a gun we spent most of our Beaver-thievings on, mounted on the front but worked from the bridge. I drop down in the chair and flip on the viewscreen, powering up the gun. "And should probably get the cannon going."

Mal glances back at Jayne. "Need to suit up. Go! Don't have much time."

But Spike's right there. "I don't need to breathe. Don't need to suit up. Just show me where, and I'll do it."

Mal spins Serenity into a left bank, making Pencil yelp, and then over his shoulder, asks, "You know how to use a gun like that?"

"Hell, yeah," Spike says. "Veteran wing commander. Victories at SpaceFox, Freelancer, HomeWorld, Spacelance."

Mal looks impressed. Guess there were a lot of battles back in the past that got excised from the history books. "Go then. Jayne, show him where, and when you get suited up, spell 'im."

They run off, Jayne trying to explain how to work the gun, how to stay attached to the hull, Spike assuring him he'll figure it out– "Can't be harder than Jedi Outcast."

I do my job. Always. Hands on the grips, fingers on the triggers. Banging away at the ragtaggle ship right before us, chipping off pieces of the hull, an aftwing, a couple of the poor wretched skeletons they use as decoration. And then, with a whoosh of sickening gray-yellow smoke, the Reaver ship spins away and comes apart. "Yes!" I yell, and just as quick, flip the viewscreen so I can get the outside view of the hull.

Spike is at post, both hands on the gun, his legs wrapped around the base, his face alight. To see him out there, without a suit or helmet– well, it's scary. But at least Jayne must have made him wait for the tether, because I can see the cable hooked onto his belt, and there's no danger of him floating away. He's laughing– I can see that much– as he jams the cannon starboard, fires the jets of fire, and jams the cannon back portside. There's no sound in space, but I can imagine his howl of pleasure when his shot hits home and the tail comes off the Reavers' second ship.

A space-suited Jayne clambers up and over, and makes his slow way over to the cannon. Jayne demands his turn, as much as he can without any sound– not that Jayne needs sound to get his point across– but Spike doesn't give way until with a scary face, he blasts the Reaver ship out of the sky. Then, all gracious, he gets up and lets Jayne have the gun.

"Speed it up," I tell Pencil. "Got two more to catch." And we zoom it up, and I glance at the screen to see Jayne shooting hard, and Spike holding on, probably offering lots of helpful but inaudible advice. They bring down the trailing ship, but the other is already entering atmo, and Jayne rises, grabs Spike by the arm, and yanks him away from the cannon.

You know, it's sort of scary when Jayne's the sensible one.

The captain is paying better attention to the real fight. He cusses as the lead ship's jet trail flames up through the moon's atmo. "Might have to fight moonside. Pencil! You can land this boat yourself, as soon as they're back aboard."

At this show of trust, the Pencil puffs up with pride, as much as a pencil can puff up. I push back my seat and start out to the external hatch, and find that Mal is right behind me. He's worried, and I can't blame him. We've seen what the Reavers can do to a vulnerable population, and there's not many more vulnerable than a bunch of monks who refuse to fight back.

The hatch opens, and Spike, his hands on the rail outside, swings in, all light and lithe. Jayne's behind him, more careful, and he waits till the airlock is sealed before punching the open button. They swagger in– well, hard to swagger in a spacesuit, but Spike's just in his jeans and shirt and boots, and he can still swagger. And he sees me there and sweeps me up in his arms for a kiss.

So much for discretion.

The captain is watching wide-eyed, but Spike keeps his arm around my waist and just says, with more of that morgish 21st century slang, "Seriously, Captain. That cannon is way better than Armada 2."

"Yeah," Mal says. And then he looks at Jayne. "We're landing. Break out the firepower."

The mention of weapons gets Spike excited, and he follows Jayne into the armory. Mal lingers behind, and it's pretty clear he wants to say something to me. But the ship lurches as we break atmo, and he looks up, and all that stuff he's been telling me about letting Pencil be pilot, well, it's gone right out that airlock.

He just can't surrender, our captain. And for sure not his ship.

\---


	7. Chapter 7

We cruise in for a landing in the field east of the new monastery, just twenty seconds behind and a half mile over the ridge from the Reavers' ship. Soon as we hit, Jayne has the hatch open and we pile out, grabbing guns from him as we go. It's hot out on the sandy ground, and sweat trickles down my neck as I take up position on the dusty road beyond the ship, scouting for trouble. Spike's right behind me, and behind him, I'm not happy to see, is River. She's blinking in the sunlight, and walking her loopy toe-first walk, and I know she's stronger than any of us (except maybe Spike), but she looks like Reaver-bait, all daydreamy and lost.

I hear a noise and yell, "Got a gun on you. Better come out, hands up."

From behind a boulder emerges a man in a monk's cassock, his head down, his hands raised. He's all ready to go meet his maker. "I'm a man of peace," he says, "I will not fight back."

Spike shakes his head, and his other face slides on, and his eyes are all gold and fiery. "Well, I'm a man of violence myself. Rather have a fight. Where'd they go?"

Chortling, Jayne cocks his rifle. "Great face," he says, as the monk shrinks back. "Better'n the Reavers even. So, Brother," he yells. "We're here to save you. Where're the bad guys?"

The monk looks disappointed, like he's been deprived of a chance at martyrdom. But Spike growls– I do love that growl– and the monk hastily points over the plateau to where I remember the hermit huts squat, right out in the heat of the sun and the sharp of the wind. And right out where there's nowhere to hide from the Reavers.

We take off in a run, holding the rifles at the ready, kicking up dust in the bright afternoon. Spike runs the fastest, bounding along over the rifts in the ground, his hair flashing gold in the sunshine, and I can tell he's exulting in the light. He can't get that where she is, I think. And then I tell myself not to be spiteful. He ain't mine. Not permanently, anyway. Just for as long as we last.

But if it should happen to last long–

No time to think about that now, because as we surmount the ridge, we can hear them, those un-words, just bellows and chokes, as they start their attack. From above, we could see a dozen of them, spreading out like dirt over the golden sand. They're aiming at the little hermit hives.

Spike looks like he's just going to jump into the middle of it all, but I grab his arm and hold him back. He growls at me, his face fading back to real-mad human, but I don't back down. "Here," I say, shoving a six-shooter at him. "Try this."

He stares down at the gun, and I force it into his right hand. "Know how to use this?"

He transfers it to his left hand and shakes his head. "I just aim, right, and pull this little dangly part?" And he narrows his eyes and stretches out his hand and pulls the trigger, and takes the top of the nearest Reaver's head off. "Like that?"

I grin at him. "I reckon they've got those on your world too, huh?"

"Yeah, in museums."

"Pretty haughty for someone who still fights with swords."

"Well," he says, casually aiming at another Reaver, this one about to leap on a kneeling monk, "these only kill humans, where I'm from. So I'm guessing those uglies are human."

"They were once. Something else now."

"That's what they say about me too, love." We fire at the same moment, and our bullets hit home.

Jayne and Mal are reloading, and I count four Reavers still standing. But now they know we're above them, and they abandon their dead and head towards the huts. Most of the hermits have fled, but three are kneeling there. I can't tell if they're too scared to move, or sacrificing themselves to keep the Reavers occupied and away from the monastery.

Well, sacrifice is what they're going to be. The Reavers are grabbing them, hefting them up, human shields.

"I can't get a good shot," I mutter, and Jayne grunts his agreement. Mal tries another gun, this one with a cross-hatched site, but we're momentarily stymied. We can shoot through the hostages right into the Reavers, but... well, we can't.

River wanders up, humming, a yellow desert bloom in her hands. She looks with interest down at the plateau. "Red flowers," she says, pointing at a headless Reaver.

"That's right," Spike says. He drops his weapons, shakes on his vampire face, and holds out his hand. "Ready to make some more, princess?"

And then, just as Simon comes up, panting, River smiles at Spike's new face. She takes his hand, and before her brother can protest, they're running, almost flying, down the slope.

They take the Reavers by surprise. They take me by surprise. I've seen River fight before, and a terribilising vision it is. But the two of them– they fight together like they've always fought together. Perfect tandem. All whirling grace and killing, her spinning, him catching, kicks in smooth arcs. Death as a dance. Hands as weapons, feet as scythes.

The Reavers fling the hostages aside, try to fight back. But in a whirl of fury, Spike and River take out three of them. And River sings out, lifting her face to the sky. It's then that one Reaver gets River from behind, grinning that horrible grin, flesh falling from his face, his hands like claws at her temples.

Beside me Simon shouts. Spike moves faster than I thought possible, faster than the Reaver can see, and his other face is predatory and fierce, and River, still in the Reaver's grasp, laughs with joy. Spike grabs the Reaver's head and twists, and it comes off in his hands, and blood sprays on River, and she laughs some more, and Spike drops the head and licks his bloody hand, and River laughs again, her voice like a wind chime amidst all the moans and screams.

Spike shakes his head, and his own face is back, at least the face I know, and he and River stand there among the strew of bodies. "High five," he says, and I don't know what that means. But River does. She raises her hand high, and claps Spike's, and I feel this... this pang. Jealousy, I guess. Not of River, but of that other slayer, the one he loves. That's why he and River fought so beautifully – because it is familiar for Spike, and some weird genetic memory for River. She has the memories of other slayers... and so with Spike, she fights like she's dancing a dance she knows by heart.

But just like that, Spike starts finding fault. Training her. River stands there, her blood-splattered face all tight like a fist, and looks away, like she's not even listening. She thinks she did great. She doesn't want to hear how she could have done greater.

Spike's telling her that she's got to sense when someone's behind her. "Got to feel with your senses, pet– got to know the air around you. Got to feel the disturbance–"

"Do not," River says, like a much younger child.

"Listen to him, River." Simon. Simon. He's spent the whole voyage suspecting Spike, stepping between him and his sister. But now he's hardened his voice and he's speaking more harshly than ever before. "You need to learn."

River makes a face at Spike, and then laughs. "I did good, didn't I?"

"You did great. Now let me show you what I mean." And there, right in the middle of all those fallen bodies, with the hermits edging their way back to their huts, Spike makes River close her eyes and feel with her skin.

"I coulda shot that one," Jayne grumbles, and stomps off back to the ship.

"Well, that was a good fight," the captain says, holstering his weapon. "Ended different than I expected– so, Zoe."

I'm figuring he's going to mention that kiss, maybe tell me how wrong it is, and I'm ready to mark him off. But instead he says, "We could maybe use another fighter. Tell him, if he's got nowhere else to go, he can join the crew."

I stare at him, and he shrugs. "Just tell him, got to supply his own blood." Then he looks down at the vampire and River sparring, Simon hovering nearby, and shakes his head. "Wonderful thing, these men of peace. But sometimes you need a man of war. Right?"

"Right," I reply, and together we head towards our ship.

 

 

Jayne and I drag Shepherd's trunk over to the main building, and after we accept their offer of tea, they reverently go through the contents. This is what left behind, what Shepherd meant to collect but never did. Now it's all that's left of him. A dozen books, a Bible, some vestments. A gold chalice and a wooden cross.

As I finish my tea and rise, the oldest monk puts down the Bible and says, "Thank you. It is a miracle, both your ship and the Pater arriving the same day."

"The Pater?" I say.

"The shepherd of shepherds," the monk says. "He is the one who saved Book from sin, years ago."

I sink back down in my seat. "Tell me about this shepherd."

And the monk tells me.

Jayne looks real hard not at me. He's fiddling with Book's possessions, stacking and unstacking the books, and he never says a word. But I hear what he's saying. He's saying it's up to me. He ain't going to tell the vampire this might be his wizard. He ain't going to say that this might be the way back. He ain't going to give an exit to the man I took as a lover.

It's up to me. That's what he's saying with his silence.

Jayne has his code. And he has his loyalties too. My heart is sort of breaking, but it's something to know that I'm one of those loyalties.

I got my loyalties too. So I rise and say, "Maybe this is Spike's wizard. I best go tell him."

And Jayne just nods and lets me go.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now you got a choice. You can go with the sensible ending. Or you can go with the post-modern one suggested by moscow_watcher, which turned out silly and self-indulgent. This here is the sensible one. The pomo one is in the next chapter.

I use the directions the monk gave me, lead Spike along the rocky path through the boulder-thrown shadows and the sun-bright slices, and the whole time I'm thinking that I'm about as stupid as can be. If this wizard is real– Spike will leave.

But he'll be happy. That's what counts, ain't it?

The cave isn't a cave at all, but a little stone house built out of the side of a mountain. It's a mellow stone, almost golden, and it's surrounded by a garden of red and yellow and purple flowers. That's where we find the wizard, pottering about in the garden. I figured wizards wore flowing colorful robes like Inara's, but he's wearing just a monk's cassock, mud brown like my coat.

Spike stops on the path. He doesn't enter through the little gate. I feel his desire, his reluctance. I want to hold him back. Instead I give him a little shove. "Go," I tell him. "I'll go with you."

And he reaches over and takes my hand, and together we enter the garden.

I don't know if the wizard's expecting us because someone warned him, or if he's psychic. But he's waiting for us at the rose arbor. "You are the vampire." The wizard studies Spike, with a sort of disinterested interest. "I haven't ever seen one of you before."

"Look your fill. But we have business too. How much to get me back to my own time?"

The wizard tut-tuts, says he has no interest in platinums, but if Spike wants to make a donation to the rebuilding effort–

"Yeah. Right. Okay."

Spike's blue eyes are glittering. "So you're saying you can send me back."

"I can send you back," the wizard says. He crouches to grab at a weed, yanks it, tosses it, and then looks up. "It is just a matter of opening a portal." He makes it sound like he opens one of these portals three times a week. "But you must have the coordinates, and the exact moment."

Spike pulls a map out of his leather duffel, and spreads it out on the dry birdbath. "That's Earth," he tells me. "At least part of it. Italy." He points to an oddly shaped landmass, a crooked finger bent out into a sea. "And Rome."

"I know about Rome," I say. I feel like I have to say something. My heart is hurting in my throat, and maybe talking will soothe it. "Caesar. Conquered Gaul."

"Yeah." He tracked the coast of the crooked finger, up along the edge to where it attached to a big block of land. "That's Gaul. Only we call it France now."

"When is now? You have to decide that." I put my hand near his, our wrists almost touching.

"Now. May– no, make it June. June 23, 2004. And has to be after sunset, and sunset will be late, right there at the solstice." He's calculating all this, staring at our hands. "Make it 10 pm. Exactly."

"A good time to go back," I say, though I don't know if it's a good time or not. I just say that, to have something to say, so I don't say _don't go._  
"Good enough."

The wizard is watching us with interest. I guess he doesn't get this level of drama everyday, not back here in the monastic realm.

"You're going back to the place and time where she lives."

"Yeah." Spike looks down at the map, strokes the star that signifies Rome.

"I'm glad," I say, and then I can't say anymore, because he's kissing me, all despair and joy.

He draws away. "I don't want to leave you."

"I'll be all right," I promise. "I can go on now." It's not enough. It doesn't tell him what he's meant to me. But it's all I can say without saying too much.

"But you'll be alone--"

"Yeah. And she's alone now. And mourning you. And you're hers, not mine." I give him a shove. "Go."

He kisses me again, but not so hard now. I can feel it-- he thinks this is cheating. Now it feels like cheating to him. I can't help but smile. He's so... gorram straight. For a demon. For a man.

I'm the one who leaves. I walk out of the hut then, before the mage does his magic. I saw Wash die, and that's all the loss I can witness. I see it in my dreams every night. I don't want to have to watch Spike vanish too.

I just hope that slayer girl surrenders enough to be happy to see him. Because it's killing me to send him back to her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now you got a choice. You can go with the sensible ending in the previous chapter. Or you can go with the post-modern one suggested by moscow_watcher, which turned out silly and self-indulgent (not moscow_watcher's fault!). This here is the pomo one.

I track Spike down back amidst the bodies, still doing his River training. I shoo her away, and when we're alone, I tell Spike about the shepherd of shepherds. "Pater Jose. They say he's centuries old."

"Yeah?"

"But he doesn't look old. So I'm thinking maybe he's another like you. A vampire."

Spike is waiting, withholding judgment, so I push on. "And they say–" I can't help it. I lower my voice to a whisper, in case the wizard is listening in. "They say he comes and goes."

Spike gives me that quizzical look of his. "Comes and goes where?"

"Here. To Safe Harbor. He just... arrives. And there's no ship. No shuttle. He just arrives in his cave, and doesn't say how he got there. And he just arrived after the battle."

This is all Spike needs to hear. "Let's go," he says. I use the directions the monk gave me, lead Spike along the rocky path through the boulder-thrown shadows and the sun-bright slices, and the whole time I'm thinking that I'm about as stupid as can be. If this wizard is real– Spike will leave.

But he'll be happy. That's what counts, ain't it?

The cave isn't a cave at all, but a little stone house built out of the side of a mountain. It's a mellow stone, almost golden, and it's surrounded by a garden of red and yellow and purple flowers. That's where we find the wizard. I figured wizards wore flowing colorful robes like Inara's, but he's wearing dungarees and a orange t-shirt like Jayne wears, only not so big.

He doesn't hear us right away. He's too busy pottering about the little garden, watering flowers here and there, talking to himself in a rhythmic singsong. Casting spells, I reckon. I don't know much about wizards, but I know that's what they do. Cast spells. But as we get closer, and the words get clearer–"But this rough magic I do abjure–" Spike starts echoing his words, softly, so only I can hear.

"I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than ever did plummet sound, I'll drown my book–" Spike breaks off as we get close, and his face darkens, as much as a face so ivory can darken. His eyes narrow, anyway, and when Pater Jose hears us and looks up, Spike growls, "He's no vampire."

"Well, he's pale," I point out as the wizard stares at Spike, and squeaks, kind of like a mouse. But he's not pale like Spike. He's pale like Wash was– another redhead, with pink and white skin. Not as darling as Wash, no, but kind of cute, and as harmless-appearing as a wonda-bunny. No reason for Spike to be looking at him like he is the devil in disguise.

"An' he's not old either." Spike glares at him.

"Sometimes I feel really old," the wizard says hopefully. All casual, he picks up one of the little wooden stakes that mark off different plantings, and he holds it by his side.

Maybe he's not so harmless after all. I put my hand on my gun. "You better not be thinking about staking my man."

"Your... man? You're kidding." The Pater lets the stake drop, looking at me and then Spike, and murmurs, "Marti always says not to leave him alone with another character for long... or someone's going to start shipping them–"

Spike stirs beside me. "Well, I've been fucking shipped all over this solar system. Persephone and Xenon and Melothe." Spike moves one step forward– it's that sexy threatening swagger of his, and suddenly I realize soon he'll be gone forever, and my heart is all hurting already. "Supposed to ship on Serenity and find me a wizard can send me back home. And I find you, and you're no wizard. Unless it's the wizard of Oz."

Pater Jose walks backwards, slow and careful, towards his cottage. All the while he's chuckling nervously. "Yeah, that's right. Oz. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.... No wizard here. Just a man. Not much of a man either. Just a–"

"A sodding actor. That's what you are!"

The Pater stops halfway to his house. "An... actor. Why do you say that?"

"I recognize Shakespeare when I hear it, mate. I got a bloody first in Greats at Oxford."

I don't know what that means, but Pater Jose looks impressed. "Oxford, huh? We used to debate that. Oxford, Cambridge. Which one– we never did specify. And a first, you say. Well. "

Spike studies Pater Jose closer. "I know you, don't I?"

"Uh, no?" Pater Jose replies. He's got that panicky look of a man about to run. I move to the left, flanking him. He ain't going nowhere.

"Yeah. I know you. You're –" Spike is frowning, but then his brow clears. "You must be a client of Wolfram & Hart. I recognize the attitude. Think you own the whole 'verse, don't you?"

"Well, in point of fact–"

"That's how you get back and forth. Through the evil law firm. I remember, when I was a ghost, seeing a time machine down in the basement. Couldn't get my fingers to work the controls– " He breaks off. I can feel his anger radiating like starpulses. "You're one of those Black Thorns, huh? We must not have gotten all of you."

"I – well, I know of that organization–"

"And we fucking beat you. Almost. Near enough."

"Well, if you'd've just followed the script, I mean, the plan–"

"Ha. Like I'm going to follow any plan of yours– is this punishment then? You sent me forward in time to punish me because I did what was right? Went with my grandsire like I ought to have done? Fought you and your pet demons?"

"I don't know why you're here. Trust me. I'm surprised to see you at all, after that battle in the alley. It was supposed to be like the Wild Bunch, you know. A last stand."

"Yeah. Only we made it through your last stand. Or at least–" Spike breaks off. After a moment, he says, like he's showing all his cards and doesn't want to, "The others. I know about Charlie and Wes. Know they didn't make it. But Angel."

"Angel." Pater Jose's voice is a bit sour. "Well. He's gone on to bigger things. Not necessarily better things. But bigger."

"So he made it."

"Oh, yeah."

"And Illyria."

Pater Jose brightened up. "Yeah. You know, I was thinking of that. You and her. Got along okay, didn't you? So I'm thinking I could put you two togeth-"

"Sod that, wizard," Spike growled. "Nothing against Blue. Good comrade. But if that was your plan, that I'd go through that portal with her and never come back–"

"Well, we didn't actually plan–"

"Because it didn't sodding work!" Spike's got that defiant look on his face, and he reaches out and grabs my hand, and holds it, cool and tight. "I found my way. Found my way to Serenity, and to Zoe. And to you. You might not be a wizard, but you got some magic in you. I can feel it. And no matter what you say, you better not abjure it, not yet."

I tighten my hold on Spike's hand. Then I let him go. I get a grip on my six-shooter instead and glare at Pater Jose. "You're going to get him home. Now." Hardest thing I've had to say in, oh, six months or so. "He helped save your _gu_ just now. If those Reavers had gotten you, you'd be –"

Paler than ever, Pater Jose cuts me off. "Okay," he says. It's more like a squeak, really. "I'll see what I can do. But–" He sits down hard on his stone bench, and he's staring at Spike. "I don't know that Spike's finished his journey yet."

"No, he hasn't. He won't be finished till he's back with his girlfriend." I say this firmly. Sure, it feels like I'm getting stabbed with that silver sword, but my voice doesn't quaver once.

"His... girlfriend." Pater Jose kind of coughs at this. "You mean–"

"The slayer," Spike says.

He's not looking at me. I've given him up. He knows it. Abjured his magic, whatever it was the wizard was saying. That's what I've done.

"The slayer. You mean–"

"I mean the real one. The Chosen One. Not that poor little girl here on Serenity."

"Oh. You noticed."

"You're bloody right I noticed. I know a slayer when I see one. Killed two, haven't I? And bedded ano–"

As Spike's words suddenly stop, they both glance at me. They're pale enough that they color up when they're embarrassed, Jose as deep as Wash always did, Spike not so much. But I look right back, like I'm not bothered at all. Not my place to be bothered. Knew all along he's got a love waiting.

"Right." Pater Jose gives another little cough. "About the slayer– Buffy, I mean."

Spike looks panicked suddenly. "She's all right, right?"

"Uh, yeah. As far as I know. Still living _la dolce vita_ in Rome. But can I give you a word of advice?"

"No," Spike says, hard and quick.

"Well, I'm going to say it anyway." Jose's got his own brand of hardness. "Don't get your hopes up. And don't expect anything. It's been a long time. She's moved on."

"I... know. Don't expect anything. Just want to see her," Spike mutters. "Make sure she's okay. Don't want anything from her."

I shake my head as I look over at him. I can tell Jose doesn't believe him either.

The wizard's voice is gentle now. "It was never meant to be. You know it wasn't. You weren't supposed to fall in love with her. Not supposed to get a soul for her. Not supposed to save the world for her. Not what we planned– don't know how it happened."

Spike gets that cute stubborn look of his, all chin and pout. (He wouldn't call it a pout. But that's what it is.) "It happened because I made it happen. And she made it happen."

"She didn't want it to happen."

"Yeah, well, she was glad enough when it did. When I fought by her every night. And she'll be glad enough to see me."

"If that's true," Pater Jose says, still all gentle, "why didn't you call her all last year?"

For a man who claims not to be a wizard, he seems to know way too much about Spike. At least that's what Spike thinks. I can tell, because he's fallen silent now, and he's glaring at the dusty ground and not at the pater.

Jose says, still all gentle, "It's because you knew she was happier without you. Not fair, I know. But you've been there for all the worst times of her life. And she's got to associate you with sorrow–"

It's working. I can tell. He's saying what Spike's already thought. And I can't have that. Even if it means he'll stay here with me, I can't have it. "You shut up," I snarl at Pater Jose. Then I grab Spike's shirt– it's that blue one he was wearing when I saw him first– and I pull him right up against me. "Don't listen to him. She misses you. I know she does. Cause I'm going to–" Not about me. Have to remember that. "Listen. You been with her for the worst times. That's because you stuck with her. Didn't take off through the escape hatch."

"That's for sure," Spike mutters. He won't look up, and his body's tense against me. But he's listening at least.

"And so you were there during the sorrowful times. But maybe now she's thinking how much worse it would be if you hadn't been. Because you brought her joy too. I know you did. 'Cause you did for me, and I never thought I'd feel that again."

I hear a watery sigh behind me, but I don't turn. Don't care. "You think I want to let you go now? I don't. But I got to. I had the meegest doubt you wouldn't find her, and be happy with her, well, I'd keep you here. I'd shoot that wizard where he sits, and I'd keep you here."

Now I hear a strangling sound, but still I don't turn. "So he's going to shut up now about her not wanting you when you get back. And he's going to make it happen. Right, Pater?"

"Uh, right." The wizard clears his throat. "But there's got to be some prep work first. Spike's got to agree to that."

I don't even bother to look back at him. "He agrees." To Spike, I say softly, "So the wizard's going to get you back to your love, and she's going to be happy the way she hasn't been since she saw you last. You got that?"

Spike looks at me now, and he smiles, and he bends and kisses me on the mouth. "I don't want to leave you," he whispers.

"I'll be all right. I can go on now." It's not enough. It doesn't tell him what he's meant to me. But it's all I can say without saying too much.

"But you'll be alone--"

"Yeah. And she's alone now. And mourning you. And you're hers, not mine." I give him a shove. "Go."

He kisses me again, but not so hard now. I can feel it-- he thinks this is cheating. Now it feels like cheating to him. I can't help but smile. He's so... gorram straight. For a demon. For a man.

I'm the one who leaves. I walk out of the hut then, before the mage does his magic. I saw Wash die, and that's all the loss I can witness this year. I see it in my dreams every night. I don't want to have to see Spike vanish too.

I just hope that slayer girl surrenders enough to be happy to see him. Because it's killing me to send him back to her.


	10. Epilogue 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This follows the pomo ending, after Spike's long month of Zen lessons with Pastor Jose.

**Five Hundred Years Earlier**

 

It was Spike. Probably a dream. Maybe a nightmare. But her nightmare Spike wasn't whole like this. And her dream Spike for sure wasn't a little sunburned with freckles sprinkling his nose.

She didn't say anything. Not a word. Nothing to say, not to him, anyway.

"Buffy," he said. "I'm back."

Finally she found something to say. "You're back. Been awhile you've been gone."

"Yeah." He was wearing all black, except for a red shirt half-buttoned over his tee. Something white was sticking out of his breast pocket. An envelope. "Here I am."

She didn't speak. Wouldn't speak. And finally, desperately, he went on, "I waited until I could come to you, without hope or expectation. Just here. And you can invite me in or toss me out. Up to you."

"Up to me, huh?" she said. Her breath was harsh now, and hurt her throat. "Then go. I don't want you here."

He stood there at the door, all quiet now. Then, slowly, he withdrew the envelope and held it out. It came through partway, but then his hand clanged against the invisible barrier, and he let go, and the envelope fell to the carpet just inside her door.

"That's for Dawn," he said. "Missed her birthday."

"Missed two of her birthdays," Buffy said. "And Christmas too."

"Demons don't do Christmas." He turned and started down the hallway, his boots tapping on the marble floor.

"I'll rip that card to shreds," she called after him. And he stopped, but he didn't turn around, and she said, "You think I'll ever forgive you?"

"No hope. No expectation," he said. He didn't even look over his shoulder at her. But he didn't move either.

"You bastard," she whispered. "I hate you. No hope. No expectation, huh? That's what you get then. I hate you."

"Okay."

And then it was like she couldn't stop the words from tumbling out. "You never told me you came back. I never know you were alive until... until you were dead again. It was like being ripped in half. Ripped to shreds. You destroyed me. I didn't know you were back and then you were gone again. And that-- that I knew. That much someone told me. That you were gone again."

He didn't respond. And that made her even madder. "Why didn't you call? Why didn't you let me know?"

"Would it have made any difference?"

"Yeah. I--" and then she blurted out, "I wouldn't have let you go back with Angel. You would have stayed with me, and you wouldn't have been in that battle, or if you were, I would have been with you, and I would have kept you safe. You wouldn't have died again."

"I didn't die. I just went... somewhere else."

"Where?"

"The future. Way in the future." And then he turned, and he said softly, "When I was in LA, I wanted to come back here the whole time. To see you. To tell you. To... to make demands. To want. But I couldn't do that-- couldn't come to you and expect. It took me being thrown halfway to never to know I could come to you without--"

"Without hope or expectation," she echoed mockingly. "Come here."

And he just tilted his head and regarded her, and finally she swore and went out into the hall and grabbed him. Just his arm. But he wasn't going anywhere, if he wanted to keep that arm. So he stayed put, and his skin was cool and hard under her hand, and she stared at his face, that lovely face of his, and she said,"How can you be sunburned? And freckles! Where did you get freckles?"

He reached up and touched the bridge of his nose, and she realized he'd never seen them, never seen how they made him look young and a bit silly and so lovely.

"Got it from the sun, I guess. In the future, the sun doesn't bother me." He looked over at the old brass gate of the elevator, like he could get on there and be transported back to the sunshine place. "And they got powdered blood, easy to pack. And I was the only demon left, so everyone thought I was special."

"Why didn't you stay there then?"

And he just smiled, but it was as if he'd said it right out. _Because you're not there_.

She pinched his arm. Not so hard this time. "No hope, huh? Not the slightest?"

"No. I've achieved Zen mastery. Just going to let it happen. Whatever it is."

"I don't want a Zen Spike," she said, and now she tugged on his arm so that he came right up next to her, right against her, and she slid her hand down to his hip, and put her head on his chest, and she said, "I want a wanting Spike. One who comes to me because he wants me as much as--"

"What?"

"As much as I want him."

"How much is that?"

"A lot. So stop being Zen."

"You know, the mage wouldn't send me back here till I got to that state. So I been working hard on it. Meditating. Breathing exercises. Clearing my mind and finding my inner white space. Focusing on the ever and the never and--"

"Stop doing that." She pressed her mouth against his t-shirt and breathed until the fabric was damp and the skin underneath too. "No more meditating. No more focusing."

His arms went around her finally. "I wasn't any good at it anyway."

"You're good at wanting."

"Yeah. Always have been."

"Want me."

"I do."

"Hope."

"Yeah."

"Expect. The best. Not the worst."

"You better promise that it'll work out then."

"I promise." And then she looked up at him, and said, very softly, "Okay. You can come in, and you better stay. Here. Now. With me."

"I guess I will then."

"And this time, you better believe me when I say it."

And this time he did.

 

 

 

She'd finally decided she could trust him not to leave, so she wasn't sitting on him anymore. Not lying on him either. And the arm across his chest, it was just to show affection. Not to keep him pinned down. That was just a side benefit.

"So this meditation training."

Spike stirred, kissed her cheek. "It was boring."

"Why'd you do it?"

"Had to do it to get back to you. This wizard– Pater Jose– he kept talking about how I had to finish my journey, and that meant relinquishing all desire."

Since he was hard again, his erection nice and throbbing against her thigh, waiting, she said, "Pater Jose must be one lousy guru."

"No, he was good. I got to the point where I really had no –"

"No hope or expectation," she said bitterly.

"Well, yeah."

"So when I told you to go away, you were ready to go away."

"Oho. That can't be allowed, huh? I got to hope that you're just foolin' with me? That if I hang about your door, you'll finally figure out you want me?"

She considered this awhile, and said, "I want you. Maybe you had to stop hoping I'd say it, so I'd say it."

"We're really fucked up, you know that?" But he said it nice and sweet, like it was okay that she didn't know her own heart well enough to do what she really wanted the first time she really wanted it.

"So your guru. I guess he knew his stuff after all."

He wriggled a little under her confining arm, and said, "Oh, he was all right. Did a lot of lecturing about how I should submit to a higher power–"

"Maybe he should have asked me first whether that was likely–"

"And how love was like holding a butterfly."

"Huh?"

"You know, close your fist and you'll crush it. Open your hand and–"

"And it'll fly away."

"He said it'll stay there on your hand."

Buffy said, "He doesn't know much about butterflies."

"Yeah. But he said he knew a lot about character arcs."

"You mean like Noah's ark?"

"I guess. I didn't listen real close when he'd go off on those lectures."

"What would you be thinking of instead?"

"Don't be coy, slayer. Doesn't suit you."

"You were thinking of me."

He paused. "Among others."

She should pursue that. But she didn't. Didn't want to know. "You like him okay?"

"Oh, he was all right. It was the other that got to me."

"Another wizard?"

"Nah, this one was a witch. Marti. He'd leave her in charge when he went away. And she kept making me take off my shirt."

That made her burn. Some other woman seeing what was hers. And yeah, that was politically incorrect and unfair and all that. But shirtless Spike belonged to Buffy. All Spikes belonged to Buffy. Now. And forever after. "Just your shirt?"

He shook his head. "It was humiliating. But she kept saying that I had to get in touch with my inner emptiness. And I couldn't do that wearing clothes."

"What did the wizard think of that?"

"Oh, he said humiliation was good for my soul. No one else's soul, I guess. Just mine."

"I think nakedness is good for your soul. But only when you're with me."

"Yeah. About that–"

She sensed he was about confess something– maybe that the witch made him do more than just take off his clothes– but it didn't matter. She would be jealous, and to no purpose, because he was here now, and he was hers. She yanked him closer, so they were skin to skin, meeting at every juncture. "No. Don't bother. We're starting. This moment."

He smiled at her, that slow, sweet smile she'd missed every second since she saw it last. She'd never have to miss it again.

He said, "We start. Right this moment. Right this now."

 

 

And they lived happily ever after, even when they argued, which was at least twice a day.


	11. Epilogue 2

Five Hundred Years (and one month) later

 

I feel him before I see him. Just feel him off a few feet to my left in the tavern's corner, feel that trouble in the air, like he told River to feel. Like he is a danger I have to risk. It's been a month I been without him, and that's the danger. Thought maybe the caring was wearing off. But no luck. I still want him.

I turn slowly, fixing my face so it shows something other than happiness. 'Cause if he's here, he's not there. Not with his love. And that's a sorrow, that he never found his way back to her.

So finally I look at him, sitting alone in that booth, his hand gripping a mug of potter's ale, and he's looking back at me. Waiting for me. He smiles, and stands, all gentlemanlike, and holds out his hand.

I forget about meeting the drumner about the lost cargo. Forget about Mal waiting in the ship (he's nongrata here on Melothe, so he's got to stay spaceborne). Forget about Jayne losing his month's pay and maybe mine too down the street at the gamble-hall. I smile back, and take Spike's hand, and kiss him on the mouth– hey, he's mine now, right? if he never got back to her-- and slide into the bench beside him. "You're still here."

"Yeah. Long journey though." 

His eyes are soft now. Sorrow does that, maybe, to blue eyes. Mine are dark brown, and all sorrow did is make them sharper and darker. But Spike's eyes are soft and kind of misty, like the morning sky when we're just above atmo. 

His hair is all dark now, and shorter. I guess he had all that expensive frosting cut off sometime the last month. 

"I guess Pater Jose didn't get you home, huh?"

He tilts his head to the side in that way I suddenly remember real well. He looks puzzled. He looks pretty puzzled. I kind of marvel at that for a while, so I miss what he says and have to ask, "What?"

"I said, he got me back all right."

"Then –" I can't help it. I reach out and touch his face, touch his mouth with my thumb. Just to make sure he's here, and not just in my dream. "Then how'd you get back?"

"I– " He stops a moment, and then says, his voice kind of burry and blurry now, "I just lived."

"You mean–" and then I figure out what he means. He means– "You just ... went back to the past. To her. Back then. And you lived all this time?"

"Well, lived is sort of a flexible term, when you're talking about me." 

I study his face real hard, that soft skin, those hard bones in his cheeks and jaw, the sweet mouth. "You don't look much different."

"Just so," he says. His voice is different somehow. Still angled at the edges, but more formal now. Kind of like Simon's voice, or Book's, like he's done some learning in the time since we last met.

A month ago. For me. Something more for him.

"Except for your hair. I liked it the old way, with the gold tips. Classier."

He smiles. No. Now it's more of a grin. I remember that too. It makes his eyes brighten back to the way I remember, bright like they were after he took out that Reaver ship with the hull-mounted gun. "Don't think they still make Lady Clairol, love."

Well, might have been a few hundred years or more since he's seen me, but he still talks in obscurances. I don't mind too much. But I still have questions. "So you got back to her?"

His eyes cloud up again. Not with tears or anything. Just with memory, I reckon. Finally he says, "Buffy, you mean."

"The slayer."

"Yeah. She made me stop calling her that. Couldn't say it in front of the childer, give them ideas. They were wild enough without that."

"You had– " and my heart sort of breaks. Not because he had babies. Because Wash and I didn't. "You had babies then."

"A couple. The magic of DNA." He pulls back his blue sleeve, and shows me that smooth forearm of his, just a dusting of light brown hair over the skin and muscle. He points to an unscarred spot just above his wrist. I can't help it. I touch it, stroke my finger down it, and it's a bit of a while before he can finish what he was saying. "Science-type took some of my skin. Boiled it, or fried it, don't know. Mixed it with ... her ... in a test tube, and–"

"Cloning," I say, because we've had that for years, though only for farm animals. 

"Not quite. They got plenty of her, as I recollect. Wouldn't want a clone of me, would you?"

Well, I might. But I am still stuck on that thought of him, and her babies. "You were happy."

"Sometimes." He pauses, and whispers, "It was a long time ago. They all died eventually."

"Oh." And he didn't. 

"There were grandchildren." He says real slow, like it's just coming back, "Lisa and Zan and Rorie." 

There's something in his voice that told me they were the last. "What happened to them?"

"The mito epidemic. I couldn't... save them. Made a promise–" He doesn't finish. But I take his hand and hold it against me, and after a moment he says, "That was a long time ago."

"You never forgot her."

"And I never forgot you."

He says this simply, and it takes me a minute to calculate. I took some history, back in school, and I remember that mito epidemic. It was one of the reasons so many left Earth, our beginning planet. And it was a very long time ago. 2070 or something. All that time, and he still recalls me. "What– what did you remember?"

He moves his hand a little, so his fingers brush against me– against my nipple, I guess I should say. He still has that perfect aim. I kind of shiver, thinking of that. Thinking of the hours to come. 

"I remember– " and he smiles at me, sliding his hand out of my grip and raising it to my cheek. "This perfect skin. And your eyes. And how your hair curls."

"You used to chew on it," I say, like we had years together and not just a week or so. 

"Tastes like choklat."

I'm not sure what he means, but it's pretty clear he likes choklat, because he bends and kisses me full on the mouth, and I can tell he thinks that tastes like choklat too. I have to pull away– we're in a tavern, I remind myself. "What else?"

"I remember how tight your uniform was against your...." Now he slides that hand back down, and I don't care anymore about being in a tavern, because somehow he's worked two fingers between the buttons of my vest and–

"Wait." 

He stops– both fingers resting still on the curve of my breast. "What?"

I think of it. Centuries. He looks the same. But he can't be the same. So many losses, so many years gone. "Are you still–"

"Yeah. Mostly." And then he starts transforming into that sharp, fierce face, and I smack him on the shoulder, because the barkeep keeps a shotgun under the bar, and if he sees, well, he'll be spraying us both with shot.

"I don't mean that. I mean, are you still– " The man I want, I want to say, but instead I just say, "you?"

"More or less."

"You must have changed."

He shrugs. Withdraws his hand. Picks up his mug. "Not as much as you'd think. Nothing really changes, see. We just go on being the same."

"Tell me," I say, and I don't know what I mean, but he does.

He looks down into his ale and says, "I don't know what happens to the years. They just go by. I finally figured out I couldn't count them. Couldn't think how long it's been since I saw someone, since I laid someone to rest. Since I loved someone. Just... went on. Did my best. And sometimes it was good. Sometimes I was somewhere, and there was someone–"

Someone he loved, he means. "Like her."

He laughed. "Yeah. Too many like her. While there, I was sort of the designated slayer-consort. Warrior consort. Kept them fighting. Kept them caring. But they all died in the end. If they didn't get killed, they'd get sick. Just like her– they'd turn 40 and just start wasting away."

It's so sad. I see it in his eyes. He stayed with them, each of them, till their end. I know that sure as I know my own name. "You said River was ... a slayer."

"Yeah. Don't know where she came from. Line's supposed to be ended for a century or more. No need for vampire slayers when all the vampires are gone."

"You're still here."

"Don't need to slay me. They had other uses for me." He smiles, but I wonder if he always enjoyed it, being the slayer consort. Sounds a bit like Inara's job, only more high-minded.

"Are you the last then?"

He tilts his head to the side. "There's one more. Haven't heard from him for a couple decades, but he's still out there."

"How do you know?"

"I just know. I'd know if he stopped. And anyway," he says, "Angelus's too mean to die."

I reach out and touch his cheek. It's cool, like always, but smooth as velvet under my touch. "What about you?"

"Oh, I'm too pretty to die."

I laugh, because I remember Mal saying something like that, years ago, and he's not even half as pretty as Spike. "Still too pretty," I say, because he just is– and he hasn't changed, not the inside him, and not the outside either. And then I remember something he told me just a month ago. "But you said before, last month, that you were the last one. Didn't you know then that he was still alive? That other vampire?"

And Spike's forehead furrows as he tries to parse out what I mean. Then, quickly, he sucks in a breath. "Right. I... then. A month ago– when I was here before. You're right. He wasn't... still with us then."

"But now–"

"I guess... oh, you know," he says suddenly, "we fought together for awhile. Saved each other a few times. Maybe, because I went back–" he stops, and then whispers, "I reckon it was my going back – if I hadn't, he would have fallen in one of those battles.... And I must have kept him intact somehow." 

His tone is sort of rueful, so I ask, "That's good, right?"

"Yeah. I think so most of the time, anyway." And then, like he's just now realizing it, he says, "It's been a bit of a while since we met. Probably ought to track him down." He must see my reaction, 'cause right away he adds, "But right now, I got something else planned."

"Wait," I break in, because he's starting to rise and tugging at my arm like he's got somewhere he wants us to be, somewhere other than this booth. I want to go too, but I figure it won't hurt him to wait a bit. He's waited centuries anyway, to hear him tell it. "How did you find me?"

It's a moment before he replies. "I never forgot. Kept the time and place in my head. I've forgot a lot, more than I ever knew, maybe. But I never forgot that. Been waiting. Without thinking too hard on it.... I've been waiting a century or more. And last month, I realized, it was time. Had to wait to make sure he– I– that other I– was gone back. No telling what would happen if we met. Spontaneous combustion, maybe."

"You been gone a month. At least from me."

"Longest month of my unlife," he murmurs, and bends back to kiss me again. Then he pulls away and sighs. "Easy then to track Serenity down. You might tell your captain that. That friend of his– Beaver? Three seconds with my fangs, and he was spilling your whole itinerary."

I shrug. "We don't much trust him anyway. But no one's tracking us, no one in the law anyway. Not this year." That reminds me of something, and I say, "The captain. He told me last month. You can join the crew, you want. Pay ain't much, but–"

"But the fringe benefits are brilliant," he finishes for me. It isn't exactly what I was going to say, but he's got his hand moving up my thigh, and I've forgot what else I was going to tell him.

"Let's get a room," I say, kind of forward, I know, but I don't think we're going to last as long as it would take to get across town to the shuttle. And then, as we rise, I press against him, and he feels the same, all cool and hard in my hands, and I whisper, "I missed you."

He bends his head and kisses me, and then whispers against my mouth, "Take me back home then."

And by home, I know he doesn't mean whatever room we find nearby, or even Serenity and the dark reaches of space. He means... me. Me and him together. That's home. And that's what he's been waiting for– and me too, even if I didn't know it. 

"Home," I say, and grab his hand to take him there.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on LiveJournal between October and December 2005.


End file.
